Table 2.

Spatial autocorrelation of study variables and correlation with extreme longevity Index₁₀₀ (person/10⁵) in the 377 villages of Sardinia and some environmental and population variables

Variables	Spatial autocorrelation		Correlation with ELIa100
	Moran’s I	p value	Spearman ρ	p value
ELIa100	0.0753	0.025	1.000	‒
Prevalence of endemic goitre in historical documents 20th centuryb	0.0860	0.013	0.210	< 0.0001
Pastoralismc	0.1113	0.002	0.272	< 0.0001
Distance to workplacec	0.0513	0.088	0.182	< 0.0001
Terrain inclination	0.0809	0.018	0.263	< 0.0001
Diet scorec	0.0386	0.151	− 0.044	0.401
Average population staturec	0.0614	0.054	0.116	0.026
Average population body robustnessc	0.0910	0.009	0.109	0.036

^aThe Extreme Longevity Index in each municipality was computed as: ELI = 10,000*C/B, where C is the number of people born in that municipality between 1880 and 1900 who reached age 100 and B is the number of births in the same cohorts of centenarians, in the same municipality and in the same time interval

^bData as defined in references: Ottonello (1927), Putzu (1928) and Desogus (1938)

^cData as defined in reference: Fermi (1934)