Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Disabled Workers’ Survival In Italy And Future Scenarios

In Italy, due to Sars-CoV2 pandemic effects, the increase in general population life expectancy paused, at least temporarily. This phenomenon also affected workers who suffered an accident or contracted an occupational disease and receive an annuity from the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (Inail). The goal of this presentation is to show the development of disabled workers’ survival in the last decades, to examine the impact of Covid-19 in the years 2020-2021 and to present the future possible scenarios. The continuous study of mortality carried out by Inail actuaries during the last decades demonstrated that life expectancy improved over time for Inail disabled of all ages. The improvement affected both the disabled with "medium-low" disability (impairment degree up to 60%), and those with "high" disability (degree higher than 60%); the first group, however, experienced a greater increase in life expectancy than the second one. The spread of the coronavirus strongly affected the monthly distribution of deaths in the year 2020. It caused a variation of +7% in the number of deaths compared to the average of the years 2016-2019. In the year 2020, for the ages up to 60, the loss of life expectancy was at least 2 years compared to that recorded in the years 2016-2019; on percentage the greatest reduction occurred at the age of 60 (-9%). First data of the year 2021 confirm a higher number of death than 2016-2019 average; the impact of Covid-19 on disabled life expectancy is still in valuating phase. A particular attention will be paid to vulnerable groups, such as workers with high disability or performing hazardous job. Although the effects of this pandemic are still lasting, the most acute phase should be passed and several future scenarios could be hypothesized. In this evolving context, the monitoring of life expectancy in the coming years becomes even more indispensable to allow INAIL to pursue the social security objective in term of benefits adequacy and financial sustainability. Will life expectancy increase again and recover the decreases observed in the years of the pandemic?

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