Every year in Italy 3.3 million domestic accidents occur (which cost us between 7 and 9 billion). Enough to take action.
On December 16, in the heart of Turin, a 70-year-old woman was hospitalized in serious condition after a fire broke out in her apartment. The day before, in Cesenatico, another woman had lost her life due to flames that broke out in the house where she lived. Episodes that end up briefly in the local news and then disappear. Yet they are only the surface of a much larger, more widespread and surprisingly ignored phenomenon: that of domestic accidents.
It’s not just about fires. In December 2024, the death of Paolo Vitelli, founder of Azimut Benetti, the luxury yachting giant, made the news: in his home in Mascognaz, in Val d’Ayas, he slipped while operating a shutter, hitting his head on the concrete. They are also frequent intoxicationslike the one caused by carbon monoxide which just a week ago cost the life of a man in Turin, ei choking.
The home as a high-risk place
Different stories, same denominator: the house. The place that by definition should be the safest is transformed into a high-risk space. It’s not the impressions that say it, but the numbers. Every year in Italy they occur approximately 3.3 million domestic accidents. It means over 9 thousand cases per day, 375 every hour, six per minute. A real one silent emergency.
For comparison: according to the most recent INAIL data, reports of accidents at work in the last year were 511,688. A huge number, rightly at the center of public debate, but which pales in comparison to the millions of accidents that happen within the walls of the home. The disproportion is also confirmed on the most dramatic front: in 2024 the so-called white deaths confirmed were 1,090, while the Higher Institute of Health estimates approximately 5,500 deaths per year attributable to domestic accidents.
Healthcare costs and public removal
The numbers paint an alarming picture, but still largely removed from public debate. «It is a structural phenomenon, which significantly affects people’s health, family organization and the sustainability of the national health system», explains Enzo Capobianco, secretary of Anpid. «The home, traditionally perceived as a safe place, is actually a high-risk environment, especially for the most fragile segments of the population».
According to data from the Higher Institute of Health, every year between 1.7 and 1.8 million visits to the emergency room are linked to accidents that occurred at home, with approx 135 thousand hospital admissions. Direct spending exceeds 2 billion euros a yearto which are added indirect costs estimated at between 5 and 7 billion. In total, an impact between 7 and 9 billion euros a yearalmost a third of a financial maneuver.
Prevention, incentives and forgotten rules
Hence the urgency to intervene. «Institutions have a decisive role in promoting a systemic approach to the prevention of domestic accidents», explains Capobianco, indicating the need to tax incentivescontributions for the adaptation of environments and the diffusion of minimum safety equipment: foam fire extinguishers, fire blankets, smoke, carbon monoxide and gas detectors.
According to what Panorama understands, the government is working on ad hoc tax breaks for the purchase of these tools. Provided that the rules are applied and, above all, communicated. In fact, since 1999 there has been a law that promotes the prevention of domestic accidents and establishes specific insurance against risk at home. A potentially important, but effectively unused measure: less than 0.2 percent of those entitled to participate.
In silence
In the institutional vacuum, individual behavior remains: prudence, maintenance of systems, safe environments, particular attention to the elderly and frail. Operational support comes from the free Anpid app, which offers practical guidance on domestic risks.
In the meantime, the emergency continues to account for injuries, victims and billions of euros in public spending. In silence. Almost as if it were a war that no one has ever declared.
