The objective to create an Italian
institute on ageing to confront Italy's exceptional demographic
challenges as part of a long-term strategy was launched at a
congress - on the theme 'An Institute for the population's
future' - organized by the health ministry on Tuesday to
illustrate the data of the Age-it program, an unprecedented
research in Europe on positive demography, prevention and active
ageing that involved 10 working groups for as many areas of
research.
The meeting was attended, among others, by the deputy minister
of labour and social policies, Maria Teresa Bellucci, and the
health minister, Orazio Schillaci.
"Creating an institute on ageing can contribute to confront
great demographic challenges and their impact on healthcare, a
responsibility for everyone", he said.
Funded by the post-COVID National Recovery and Resilience Plan
(NRRP), Age-it was led by the University of Florence and its
dean Alessandra Petrucci.
"We wondered whether it was possible to start from a different
perspective, seeing the ongoing transformation as an opportunity
and not only as a negative scenario", said Petrucci.
"We thought about building something that could be a national
and international reference point".
"If the elderly are considered as useless in a society of
seniors, then we are surrendering to the idea that the country's
future is useless", said Bellucci, stressing the demographic
challenge "is on top of the government's agenda".
According to data relased by national statistics agency ISTAT
last month, Italy's population continued to age in 2023, so much
so that it had almost six over-64s for every child under six.
The ratio was 5.8 elderly people for every small child, up from
5.6 in 2022 and 3.8 in 2011.
The national statistics agency said the average age of the
population rose to 46.6 years in 2023, up by 0.2% on 2022.
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