La cultura fa bene alla salute? Un approccio pseudo-panel sui dati dell’indagine ISTAT Multiscopo – Aspetti della Vita Quotidiana

One of the main challenges of contemporary societies, marked by an aging population, is ensuring optimal health and well-being conditions for all citizens for as long as possible. Attention to the factors influencing health and well-being has expanded from material aspects to immaterial ones, linked to social interaction and emotional well-being. Alongside a healthy diet and physical activity, cultural participation is increasingly recognised as a key component of a healthy lifestyle, with positive effects on cognitive functions, psychological and emotional well-being and interpersonal relationships. The aim of this study is to verify the existence of a causal statistical relationship between cultural consumption and the subjective perception of health status. The study utilizes existing data from the ISTAT Multipurpose Survey – Aspects of Daily Life, which contains information on both areas. Since the data are cross-sectional, it was necessary to transform them into a longitudinal perspective using a pseudo-panel approach. Groups (“entities” in the text) of similar individuals were thus created and observed over time, from 2005 to 2019. Different types of cultural consumption were also grouped by domain through a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to assess their effectiveness. The results confirm a positive effect of cultural consumption on the perception of health status, although with varying intensity depending on the activity domain. This suggests the need for greater attention and targeted interventions in this sector.