Aims — Most of the available evidence on the relationship between socioeconomic indicators of social deprivation and patterns of use of mental health services has been produced in the United Kingdom, where the Ministry of Health has developed a resource allocation formula based upon the results of those studies. The main aim of the paper is to evaluate the replicability in the Italian context of such research, and of the resulting allocation strategies. Methods — Detailed description of the resource allocation method currently adopted in the United Kingdom, whose main purpose consists in reaching the best balance between available funding and patterns of need. Detailed description of resource allocation processes in Italy; discussion of the main methodological and statistical limitations restraining the replicability of the British formula in the Italian context. Conclusions — There is a growing interest in Italy towards the introduction of evidence-based methods in health decision making, in order to correct the overwhelming influence of political issues. What is needed is a better understanding of the relationship between higher levels of equity in health services access, and their effects in terms of better outcomes.

Declaration of Interest: the current paper has been developed within a Research Programme funded by the Agenzia Regionale per i Servizi Sanitari, Regione Piemonte (Deliberazione n. 54 del 31.07.02). None of the authors received any additional source of funding for the development of this paper as well as for the related research activities.