Displacement of Death from Home to Hospital in Historical Perspective: The Case of Italy, 1883–2013

Abstract

Abstract The process of changing the location of death from home to hospital in Italy between 1883 and 2013 occurred as part of a wider, century-long shift in the attitude toward death in Western societies. A longitudinal analysis of data collected in Italian provinces, using random intercept models, reveals the extent to which the displacement of death was the result of demographical, socio-structural, and cultural processes and the extent to which the influence of these processes differed geographically throughout Italy. Results show that the displacement of deaths to hospitals during this period was largely due to the growing availability of medical facilities, to changes in the causes of death among the elderly, to decreasing family size, and to urbanization. The influence of the family and urbanization is most evident in northeastern Italy, where changes from complex to simple household structures became more common during the twentieth century.