Monthly Basket Costs for Healthy and Sustainable Diets in Italian Provinces (2021–2024)
Description
This dataset provides seasonally disaggregated estimates of monthly food basket costs required to sustain a healthy and sustainable diet across all 107 Italian provinces between August 2021 and March 2024. Cost estimates are reported for five demographic profiles, i.e., infants, adolescents, adult women, adult men, and the elderly, based on national dietary guidelines that reflect age- and gender-specific nutritional needs. The basket composition aligns with the Mediterranean diet principles and includes 167 food items grouped into broad categories such as vegetables, fruits, cereals, legumes, fishery products, and processed foods. The food price data originate from the Osservatorio Prezzi e Tariffe, an official dataset made available by the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT), jointly with ISTAT. The raw dataset includes 397,505 item-level observations from 64 surveyed provinces, reporting minimum, average, and maximum prices by month. To address missing geographic coverage in the remaining 43 provinces, a two-step imputation strategy was implemented. First, within-survey gaps were filled using temporal smoothing and spatial averaging. Second, for provinces without survey coverage, a spatial regression model was employed, leveraging local income levels and neighboring province prices. The resulting panel spans 12 seasonal time points, i.e., Summer and Autumn 2021; all four seasons of 2022 and 2023; and Winter and Spring 2024, which yields a total of 1,284 province-season observations. For each demographic group and province-season, three cost estimates (based on minimum, average, and maximum food prices) are reported. All prices are expressed in euros per month. These figures reflect the cost of meeting nutritional requirements through a theoretically optimal mix of foods, not actual consumption behavior. This dataset offers high-resolution spatial and temporal coverage, making it suitable for evaluating the affordability of healthy diets under varying price conditions. It provides an empirical basis for assessing regional disparities in diet-related economic burdens, investigating nutritional access among vulnerable populations, and informing local and national food security strategies. It also contributes to broader discussions on sustainable consumption by aligning economic assessment with health-based dietary benchmarks. Researchers in public health, nutrition, food economics, and regional policy may also use this dataset for simulation exercises, cost modeling, and scenario analysis.
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Institutions
- Universita degli Studi di Pisa
- Universita degli Studi della Tuscia
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Funders
- Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR)Grant ID: 2022PX2RAR