This article explores relationships between social factors and physical frailty among older people, and describes the results of a survey realized with a sample of 540 elderly cases in Genoa, Italy. With the objective of realizing and validating proper methodological tools to evaluate frailty in ageing in a multidimensional approach, the study represents the first validation in Italy of the FRAIL scale aimed at evaluating physical frailty and combines its application with different tools exploring the relationship of health with socioeconomic conditions, life styles, social capital, services availability and social activation of elderly people.
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