Quality of life in Italy

?The outcome of the first Italian National Conference on Quality of Life, this volume is full of cogent analysis of topics and issues related to well being and quality of life, including focused papers on specific population groupings and discrete themes. Held in Florence in September 2010, the conference saw the creation of the Italian Association of Quality of Life Studies, devised as a forum for this varied field of research with a rapidly expanding profile in the context of the continuing financial crisis. The papers address a number of recognized quality-of-life concerns, including public health, wealth distribution, employment, political participation and the perception of crime. Contributors deploy innovative methods of analyzing official statistics that result in more complex and multidimensional indicators. Some papers provide data on other European nations that allow for comparative assessment, while others set out fresh approaches to evaluating quality of life itself. Highly relevant not just to academics, but to policy makers and practitioners in a range of sectors, this publication explores important aspects of a crucial contemporary subject.

Filomena Maggino is professor of Social Statistics at the University of Florence (Italy) and chief of the Laboratory of Statistics for Research in Social and Educational field. In the field of statistics applied to social research, her twenty-year research covers mainly data (i) production (with particular reference to subjective data assessment), (ii) analysis (with particular reference to multivariate analysis, scaling models and composite indicator construction), and presentation and dissemination (with particular reference to defining a model aimed at assessing the quality of communication in statistics). Her research interests aim at seeing these topics in the perspective of quality of life assessment. Her involvement in ISQOLS is decennial (member from 2000, board member from 2001 and VP of Academic Affair from 2004 and current President-Elect) and outstanding (chair and organizer of the IX Conference in Florence, ISQOLS reference member for the agreement with the OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies, in which ISQOLS is Associate Organization). She is member of several international associations, many scientific journals' editorial board, scientific committees and session organizer/chair of numerous international conferences. She is involved in many international and national initiatives, roundtables, and training courses related to the movement on 'Beyond GDP'. She is co-founder and president of the Italian Association for Quality-of-Life Studies (Associazione Italiana per gli Studi sulla Qualità della Vita - AIQUAV). - Professor of Statistics applied to Social Research at the University of Florence - Head of the Laboratory of Statistics for Research in Social and Educational field (Lab-StaRSE) - President of the Italian Association for Quality-of-Life Studies (AIQUAV) - President Elect of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) - Component of the OECD Global Project Research Network on Measuring the Progress - Component of the Scientific Committee for the Measurement of Wellbeing (Commissione scientifica per la misura del benessere) established at Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on April 2011 - Cooperating with the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on quality-of-life and wellbeing issues - Member of several international associations, many scientific journals' editorial board, scientific committees and session organizer/chair of numerous international conferences. - Author of many publications on methodological issues concerning mainly indicators construction and subjective data assessment. Main research interests concern: • data production (with particular reference to subjective data assessment), • data analysis (with particular reference to multivariate analysis, scaling models and composite indicator construction), and • data presentation and dissemination (with particular reference to defining a model aimed at assessing the quality of communication in statistics). Giampaolo Nuvolati is Associate Professor at the University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy) where he teaches Urban Sociology and has developed and coordinated several theoretical studies and empirical research on social indicators and quality of life. He has co-operated to many European research projects oriented to define and to measure living conditions in urban contexts (for example the Project 'Urban Indicators' for the EU Committee of the Regions, the Project 'Guidebook on Using Indicators for Social Cohesion', for the Council of Europe; the Project 'Urban Development Programs, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion & Sustainability' for the EU - DG Research). In 2003-2004, he was member of the Italian Governmental Guarantee Commission on Statistical Information for the Program: 'Statistics for Metropolitan Areas, Proposals for an Integrated System' where he studied and compared different approaches for analysing resident and non-resident metropolitan populations. He has developed studies concerning the relationships between spatial and temporal mobility, between services accessibility and quality of life in local communities, between sociology, urban spaces and literature (The flâneur in the city: from Baudelaire to the postomodernists, 2006). He is author of many publications on social indicators and quality of life. He is member of Board of Directors of ISQOLS (The International Society for the Quality-of-Life Studies).