Panic at the Hospital: An Economic Appraisal of Violence Against Italian Healthcare Workers. [JMP]

Violence against healthcare workers is a growing global concern, yet its economic underpinnings remain underexplored. This study investigates whether factors linked to healthcare supply causally affect the incidence of workplace violence in Italian healthcare settings. To this end, we construct a novel, geolocated panel dataset of over 3,500 serious assault episodes (2015–2023), scraped and classified from 23,500 news articles using LLMs. We merge this outcome with granular administrative data on hospitals, Local Health Authorities (LHAs), staffing, expenditures, and hospital performance data web scraped dynamically from official ministerial sources. Our empirical strategy relies on staggered difference-in-differences models, exploiting variation from facility closures and LHA mergers, accounting for the political alignment of regional government due to the decentralization of Italian healthcare system. Further explanations may be linked to the demand side and lack of trust towards institutions. Preliminary descriptive evidence highlights a growing and geographically heterogeneous trend in violent incidents. This work contributes to the literature on the unintended consequences of healthcare system restructuring, introducing media-sourced data as a novel proxy for stress in public service delivery.

Keywords: assaults, healthcare networks, hospital closure, medical personnel.

JEL Classification: H51, H75, I18, K42.