In the present work we study possible local/regional effects of the 2008 Great Recession utilizing data from the national Italian surveillance system PASSI (Progressi delle Aziende Sanitarie per la Salute in Italia). PASSI, adopting the behavioral risk factor surveillance (BRFS) model to the Italian context, tracks health conditions and risk behaviors across Italian regions. Here we are interested in time and context effects of some BRFS indicators. We specify a multilevel logistic model following the general form of the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) in order to disentangle the differences of both health perception and risk behavior considering three sources of variation: individual, local and regional context effects. Results show a noticeable context effect on the main BRFS indicators.
