There are two basic ways of understanding vulnerability, which in broad terms is the general susceptibility to harm, injury, failure or misuse. According to a first interpretation, vulnerability is a characteristcs which defines the human conditions. All human beings are by definition vulnerable, given their corporality, dependency and affective inclinations. However there is a more specific approach. Here to be vulnerable means to be at risk of being harmed, wounded (negatively affected) by unforeseen events, in general and in economics as well. In economics, these unforeseen events are often called "shocks": economic vulnerability is a vulnerability to shocks of any kind, a susceptibility to exogenous shocks.  According to this second interpretation, vulnerability is by definition contingent both with reference to the kind of harm to be affected by and to the category of people more exposed to such harm. In this second meaning, we usually speak of vulnerable groups or countries. As such the concept of economic vulnerability needs several kinds of clarification, first about its consequences which are referred to (static or dynamic), second about its sources (what kind of events?) and then about its difference from other more or less proximate notions. The concept of vulnerability provides numerous points of reflection  when we consider  the dynamics of development, poverty and sustainability, that  help  in understunding  the various manifestations and impact on development and implementation of economic and social policies. As consequence,in various contexts the concept of vulnerability appeared to be a relevant one, leading to a need for a broad definition likely to cover the specific vulnerability of different kinds of countries and situations. In general, a single and coherent definition of vulnerability does not exisist and nor a comprehensive and systematic analysis of this phenomenon. In fact, despite the complexity of the meanings that the concept of vulnerability encompasses, it is generally understood and analyzed with different measurements of the phenomenon in different areas (ALWANG, 2001). From an economic approach vulnerability is considered as a possible loss of well-being that comes from the combination of risks and risk management. The method of measurement of vulnerability is the monetary variables as for example, the value of income, consumption per capita in relation to a standard poverty line. Following this approach,one of the first consequences of vulnerability  could be the immediate losses of welfare resulting from shocks. Following a sociological approach, the term of social vulnerability is analyzed in term of effects resulting from socio-economic changes that, over the past few decades, have eroded the traditional order of the welfare state to industrial base, in Italy as in the rest of Europe (NEGRI, 2006 ). TRILUZI and MONTALBANO (2004, PG. 191), state that: "the term vulnerability stems from the evolution latest analysis on the development and arises from the awareness that for a full understanding of the level of sustainability of the poorest behavior is not sufficient simply to assess the available assets, but it is necessary to analyze the dynamics and characteristics of the strategies and responses of different social groups in different political and socio-economic contexts. The present paper first analyses the concept of vulnerability . In the light of different definitions and interpretations of the term vulnerability we consider  appropriate to proceed in this work by analyzing the effect of the shocks, in aggregate, on that section of the population and  the more vulnerable part of societies. Starting from the historical and philosofical analysis of the shocks and effects that they have and have had on certain sectors of the population, we will introduce the concept of vulnerability to poverty related to the recent shock ( economic crisis). In particular, in contrast to what already present in the literature, we will study the concept of vulnerability to poverty analyzing that part of the population that, before any shock is not poor and does not benefit from development policies, and that after the shock moves towards the poverty line facing greater difficulties than those poor it was already before the shock. Then we consider several issues about the link between vulnerability and growth and their policy implications in Italy and in the European context. The paper briefly reviews the work already carried out on economic vulnerability and extends the research towards the development of a conceptual and methodological framework for the definition of structural and non-structural vulnerabilities, and in this framework we will assume a kind of response to the crisis (not just economic) that ad hoc policies should be adopted to reduce the likelihood that a greater exposure to shocks may result in adverse effects on health.