This study investigates the relationship between sense of community, civic engagement and social well-being in a sample of Italian adolescents. Participants were 14-19 year-old high school students (N ¼ 566) from two demographically distinct cities. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing sense of community, social well-being (Keyes, 1998), involvement in structured group activities (group membership) and civic engagement. Results showed that involvement in formal groups is associated with increased civic involvement and increased sense of community. Sense of community predicts social well-being and explains some of the association between civic engagement and social well-being. Findings suggest that, to increase social well-being, it is important to provide adolescents with more opportunities to experience a sense of belonging to the peers' group and promote prosocial behaviours in the community context.

The results underscore the importance of building public trust and to consider the influence of risk perception and affective response in promoting compliance with recommended behaviors.

The outbreak of the pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 (swine flu) between March and April 2009 challenged the health services around the world. Indeed, misconceptions and worries have led the public to refuse to comply with precautionary measures. Moreover, there have been limited efforts to develop models incorporating cognitive, social-contextual, and affective factors as predictors of compliance with recommended behaviors. The aim of this study was to apply a social-cognitive model of risk perception and individual response to pandemic influenza H1N1 in a representative sample of Italian population. A sample of 1,010 Italians of at least 18 years of age took part in a telephone survey. The survey included measures of perceived preparedness of institutions, family members and friends' levels of worry, exposure to media campaigns (social-contextual factors), perceived coping efficacy, likelihood of infection, perceived seriousness, personal impact, and severity of illness (cognitive evaluations), affective response and compliance with recommended behaviors. Results demonstrated that affective response fully mediated the relationship between cognitive evaluations and social-contextual factors (with the exception of exposure to media campaigns) and compliance with recommended behaviors. Perceived coping efficacy and preparedness of institutions were not related to compliance with recommended behaviors.

Research examining youths' political development mostly focused on young people as a general group; comparatively less attention has been devoted to the examination of gender pathways toward citizenship. Two studies were conducted addressing (a) the role of parents' participation and the moderating role of adolescent gender and age group (n = 1419) and (b) the role of adolescent social and civic participation and the moderating role of adolescent gender and type of school (n = 1871). Results confirmed the gender gap in political interest and in the use of the Internet for political participation, while no differences emerged for political activity and voting intentions. Adolescents' political engagement and participation are influenced by parents' participation (especially among girls) and by adolescents' social and civic participation (especially among boys). The impact of adolescents' social and civic participation on conventional participation (voting intentions) is partially mediated by sense of community and institutional trust.

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About 90% of all influenza-related deaths occur among people aged 65 years and older. Vaccination remains the primary option for preventing influenza infection. This study examined the efficacy of messages designed to increase the uptake of influenza vaccination. Two messages, narrative and didactic, were created based on the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM). The study employed a one-factor between-subjects experimental design with participants assigned randomly to three conditions: no message, didactic communication, and narrative communication. Participants were 311 Italian people aged 65 years or older. The results showed that, compared to no message and didactic communication, narrative communication was related to higher risk perception of influenza, to higher perception of the efficacy of the vaccine, and to self-efficacy related to vaccination, controlling for social trust, previous flu shot, and demographic variables. There were no differences among the three conditions with respect to the intention to receive the influenza vaccine. Findings suggest that narrative communication based on EPPM may have a persuasive effect on people aged 65 years or older.

The purpose of this research was to explore adolescents' feeling of unsafety associated with living in the urban context, their perceptions of the quality of social relations (social support from different persons) and sense of community, and the differences according to the size of the city and adolescent gender. A second aim was to analyse the antecedents of feeling of unsafety. In particular, we considered the in¯uence of sense of community, perception of social support and personal involvement in negative experiences in the urban environment. A questionnaire was submitted to 823 adolescents aged 14 to 19 years (43.3% male and 56.7% female), living in cities of different sizes in north-central Italy. Results show the presence of differences in feeling of unsafety and sense of community according to the size of the urban context and adolescent gender. Personal involvement in negative situations is a strong predictor of feeling of unsafety, whereas sense of community plays a limited role in reducing it. The picture concerning the effect of social support is mixed.

Civic participation in community life and within community organiza-tions is generally considered as associated with positive outcomes for youth development and well-being. However, supportive empirical evidence on such benefits is still limited, as well as on the processes that may explain such positive outcomes. In this paper, we examined the impact of young people's participation different community and youth organizations on Social well-being, and the medi-ating role of Sense of community (SoC) and Empowerment. The sample comprised 835 adolescents and young adults, aged 16-26 years old (M = 20.8). 414 partici-pants were males (49.6 %) and 421 participants were females (50.4 %). Results confirm that organizational membership of volunteer, youth, and religious associations significantly enhances Social well-being, both directly and through the mediation of SoC and Empowerment. Membership of leisure and recreational associations only marginally and indirectly affects Social well-being through the mediation of Empowerment.