Healthcare Policies and Social and Health Services

The course aims to provide the basic knowledge and the conceptual tools necessary to integrate the operation and interventions - from a comparative perspective - of the Italian health and social care system, with particular attention to its most recent evolution - which responds to demographic, socio-economic and political-institutional changes - and its future prospects. The fundamental concepts to study the health and social-health policies and the analysis of the historical-comparative evolution of the health and social-health systems will be introduced. The in-depth analysis of the main reforms will highlight the challenges to which policy-makers have had to respond, the political dynamics and the role of actors in the central and local "recalibration and reform" process of the health service and of the long-term assistance policies. The course takes into consideration health and in the social-health policies and intervention measures that also involve non-public actors.

At the end of the course the student will be able to use the acquired knowledge to critically frame the current policy choices and he/she will be able to demonstrate their connection with the functioning of health and social-health systems, even when these choices have not been directly addressed during the lectures. The student will know how to describe the configuration and evolution of the Italian health and social-health system in a comparative perspective and he/she will know how to identify, for both areas of policy dealt, the main socio-demographic and economic challenges and the reforms undertaken by Italy especially during the last three decades.