The report looked into five-year survival rates for prostate, breast, colon and lung cancers, and found that Italy had slightly better rates than the rest of the EU when it came to all four.

The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 90 per cent, slightly higher than the EU average of 87 per cent, the report said.

The rate for breast cancer is 86 per cent, again three points higher than the European average.

For colon cancer, the rate is 64 per cent, four points higher than the EU average.

Lastly, the rate for lung cancer is 16 per cent, compared to 15 per cent across Europe.

“Five-year survival rates following diagnosis for these and other cancers were slightly higher in Italy than in other EU countries, suggesting the health system is generally able to provide effective and timely treatments,” the report said.

Italy reports the second lowest rate of preventable deaths in the EU after Cyprus.

Low mortality rates were also reported for ischaemic heart disease, suicide and alcohol-related diseases, and accidental deaths.

“Italy’s low levels of preventable deaths can be explained, at least in part, by solid public health policies implemented about a decade ago,” the report stated.

One of those initiatives was a nationwide smoking ban in public and workplaces that went into effect in 2005.

The country also adopted a federal law in 2013 banning people under the age of 18 from buying tobacco.

However, smoking is still a significant problem in Italy.

The report notes that 1 in 5 adults still uses tobacco products, despite a concentrated effort (raising cigarette prices and adding new images and warnings to packs) to curb smoking’s popularity.

And despite raising the tobacco buying age to 18, the report found teenagers were still using these products regularly.

“Smoking rates among Italian adolescents have not fallen between 1995 and 2015, while they have dropped in most other EU countries,” the report noted.

Access to care and screening also plays a big role in the fight against cancer, and the report indicated there were socioeconomic disparities in survival rates.

For example, people living in the poorer regions in southern Italy were “almost twice as likely to report unmet medical care needs than those living in wealthier regions in the north. Reported unmet needs due to waiting times and travel distances are also higher in southern regions”.

Life expectancy at birth in Italy increased from 79.9 years in 2000 to 83.1 years in 2017, the second highest in the EU after Spain.

While the gender gap in life expectancy has narrowed since 2000, on average Italian men still live four years less than women.

The report also noted disparities by socioeconomic status and across regions.

The least-educated Italian men on average live 4.5 years less than the most educated, and people in the most affluent regions in the north live over three years more than those living in the least affluent regions in the south.

But while “inequalities by socioeconomic status remain non-negligible” in the country, researchers said these affected life expectancy less than in other EU countries.

Finally, the report said mortality rates from Alzheimer’s have risen significantly, although this could be ascribed to “improvements in diagnosis and changes in death registration practices”.

Overall, cardiovascular diseases remained the main cause of death in Italy.

Health spending per capita in Italy was €2483 annually in 2017, about 15 per cent below the EU average of €2884.