Analisi demografica della longevità in Sardegna

One of the most important demographic phenomena that has been occurring in industrialized countries since mid-last century is a progressive increase of life expectation (Oeppen and Vaupel, 2002; Candore et al., 2006). This trend in the last few decades, has made possible to certify a progressive increase in the life expectancies of individuals who have achived and perhaps exceed hundred years of age. It is now widely recognized as the life expectancy is influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, but is not yet certified whether these features are determinig to obtain extreme longevity. In the Italian context several studies about centenarians have been proposed (Caselli et al., 2000; Passarino et al., 2002; Gueresi et al., 2003; Magnolfi et al., 2007), particularly regarding the insular region of Sardinia (Deiana et al., 1999; Poulain et al., 2004). The main aim of the present study is to verify the presence and persistence of a high-longevity area in Sardinia. Our dataset comes from ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics), regarding Census and Inter-census estimation. From this dataset it is possible to recompose the distribution by sex and age of municipal population, even analysing the sex ratio F/M. Basing on the results obtained it has not been found in the whole Sardinian territory a storical-geographical area where there is a particular high correspondence between centenarian people and the whole population in every period examined. The presence of long-lived individuals concentrated in precise geographical areas could be considered a casuality, while the results do suggest a distribution of the centenarians among the small municipalities (less than 2500 inhabitants).