Health Equity Italy (HEI)
Interdepartmental Research Center
Partnership for research on health inequalities at work and in social life
The HEALTH EQUITY ITALY (HEI) Center aims to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers working on the multidirectional relationships between histories of well-being and health and histories of work and life in the various departments of the University of Turin and in various public agencies, with the goal of increasing knowledge about these relationships and making it usable for designing policy strategies at the local, national and European levels.
The center's goal is to guide new welfare policies (work, home, school, environment, territory and services) starting with the study of inequalities analyzed through the relationship between health, work and living conditions, measured, for example, through the main health indicators (life expectancy, morbidity, functional limitations, subjective health).
Among the Center's aims is also to promote the establishment of databases that enable the tracking and study of health, work and life histories with a parsimonious use of administrative data, in collaboration with public agencies that own information systems relevant to these purposes.
THE HEALTH EQUITY ITALY (HEI) Research Centre was established in Turin in 2022 by the collaboration of the following departments of the University of Turin:
- Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences
- Department of Cultures, Politics and Society
- Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis"
In particular, the Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences contributes to research with the epidemiological and public health expertise needed to frame the biological and organizational mechanisms that explain the action of social determinants and related policies on health.
International examples of Research Centers based on similar themes are the Institute of Health Equity (IHE) at UCL in London, Sweden's governmental health, labor and welfare research agency (FORTE), the partnership EuroHealthNet and the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research in Vienna.
Polo di Medicina Orbassano e Candiolo - Hub of Medicine Orbassano and Candiolo
Regione Gonzole 10 - 10043 Orbassano
Director: Fulvio Ricceri
President: Giuseppe Costa
Management Committee:
- Fulvio Ricceri (Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences)
- Roberto Leombruni (Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis")
- Sonia Bertolini (Department of Cultures, Politics and Society)
Scientific Committee:
- Fulvio Ricceri
- Chiara Di Girolamo (Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences)
- Sonia Bertolini
- Roberto Di Monaco (Department of Cultures, Politics and Society)
- Roberto Leombruni
- Lia Pacelli (Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis")
- Angelo d'Errico (Suprazonal Service of Epidemiology, ASL TO3)
- Chiara Ardito (Revelli Lab)
-
the development and coordination of activities̀ of research on the relationships between health, work and life histories and the resulting policies to address inequalities by making data, methodologies and techniques available to scholars and researchers as follows;
-
the design and activation of and facilitation of access to longitudinal data infrastructures for observational, experimental and simulative research useful for needs and risk analysis and effect evaluation of interventions and policies;
-
the study of causality-related statistical methods (e.g., those of the counterfactual type) to investigate the importance of different mechanisms for generating unequal effects on health and life and work pathways, and related counteracting interventions in the complex causal chains that unfold in the life courses of individuals and groups;
-
the study of qualitative “realist” methods to investigate the time- and context-specific reasons why mechanisms work;
-
the application of the methods described at the macro, meso and micro levels and in different living, social, organizational and work environments;
-
the formulation of research projects in the Center's fields of interest and the increase of the University's research and fund-attraction capacities in the national and international arena, including by entering into contracts and agreements with Public and Private Entities;
-
the activitỳ of support to professional training and/or high qualitỳ pertaining to the methodologies and tools proper to the activitỳ of the Center, also through the carrying out at the Center of training courses, internships and training placements;
-
in agreement with the competent Level II and III teaching structures, allow and support the production of master's and doctoral theses, both theoretical and experimental, on the scientific themes proper to the Center;
-
the promotion and advocacy on research results to the centers of responsibility and the public to make decision-making more informed;
-
the promotion may be through the organization of conferences, workshops, seminars, and related educational activities, and through dissemination in various forms of the scientific results and activities of the Center and individual departments and scholars;
-
the activation of collaborative and advisory relationships with other universities̀, or with other research centers or groups, with private or public entities at the international, national and local levels.