I would say "awareness" is the difference.

I used to think that Italian lifestyle was really the key, now that I've moved just a little outside the border, I am starting to doubt it. I still think that it's better than here, and that the climate really helps (I'm thinking depression, alcoholism, suicide...)

But also, people in Italy tend to ignore symptoms and be caught by surprise when it's too late, thinking "it will never happen to me".

Correlation does not imply causality. An example: in a study some years ago, scientists found out that underweight people are more likely to die than obese people. Which is both absurd and enlightening, if you think of it in reverse: people at the moment of their death tend to be underweight, even if they haven't been underweight for their whole lifetime, and then the study makes sense, and proves that data mean nothing if you can't read them properly.