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BackgroundCongenital CMV (cCMV) infection is a serious public health issue due to both its worldwide prevalence and the severe and permanent impairments it causes. However, awareness of this infection is low in the general population and among pregnant women, and it also seems to be generally disregarded by healthcare providers. The identification of factors behind this inadequate level of knowledge could provide a basis for future preventive measures. This study aimed at evaluating awareness of CMV and cCMV infection and its correlation with socio-demographic variables in a general population.MethodsThe survey was carried out by computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI). A questionnaire was sent via e-mail to the 70,975 individuals who comprised the whole population (students, administrative staff, teaching staff) of Milan University, Italy in 2015.ResultsOut of the 10,190 respondents, 5,351 (52.5 %) had already heard of CMV but only 3,216 (31.8 %) knew that this virus could be implicated in congenital infection. Urine and breastfeeding were the least recognized transmission routes for CMV infection; less than half of respondents accurately identified the right symptoms and sequelae caused by cCMV infection. The correct hygienic measures against cCMV infection were identified in percentages ranging from 55.6 to 75 % depending on the measures proposed but about one in three of interviewees deemed those measures unnecessary in the event of a pregnant woman already being CMV seropositive. From the mean knowledge scores the most complete quality of awareness of CMV turned out to be linked to childbearing-age (25–40 year) and with not having children, even if results for non-parents showed less of them having heard of cCMV than parents.ConclusionOur results indicate a limited and confused awareness of cCMV infection in a large, fairly young and well-educated Italian population.

Drawing on 2011 and 2016 European Quality of Life Survey data from eight European countries, this paper considers the importance of subjective indicators of employment conditions in impacting mental well-being. Among employment conditions, job insecurity has been discussed as having a negative impact on mental well-being by enhancing the worker’s sense of unpredictability. The idea of losing one’s job brings with it the fear of an uncertain or unclear future and the sense of lack of agency—i.e. feeling powerless with respect to the risk of becoming unemployed. Thus, we investigate two dimensions of job insecurity, namely ‘cognitive job insecurity’ and ‘labour market insecurity’. Our dependent variable is mental health well-being, measured using the 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), which is a self-reported health scale validated by several studies and internationally adopted for measuring psychological well-being. We apply a fixed-effects model and use a set of individual control variables to obtain parameter estimates. Moreover, to control for country-level heterogeneity, two macro-level variables are considered: the type of welfare regime and employment protection. The novelty of this research lies in disentangling the concept of precariousness from the dichotomy of open-ended/non-open-ended contract and in including in the analysis subjective categories such as self-perceived job insecurity. The findings of our study suggest that self-perceived job insecurity is negatively related to mental well-being for both permanent and temporary workers, making this stressor an important feature in predicting the emergence of psychological distress (i.e. feelings of anxiety or depression) among the workforce.

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