Background: Alzheimer's disease presents a social and public health problem affecting millions of Italians. Those affected receive home care from caregivers, subjected to risk of stress.

AimTo define food safety and risk perception of foodborne diseases in the private home setting and identify specific behaviours during food purchase, storage and preparation in a large survey study.Subject and methodsA large sample of individuals (n = 1,000) living in the area of Cassino, Italy, volunteered to participate in the study. All participants were randomly recruited and underwent a questionnaire-based interview at their home regarding food-safety measures. Logistic regression analyses were used to test for correlations between demographic characteristics and knowledge/behaviours of food diseases. Risks of hazardous practices in the home were calculated according to educational, physical, occupational and marital status. All analyses were performed using the EPIINFO 3.5 statistical program.ResultsOur data showed that there was an insufficient amount of knowledge regarding foodborne diseases and pathogens. In most families, we found that there was a lack of correct adherence to food hygiene, mainly due to errors during both food preparation and storage. There was a higher risk for food safety errors in families with children, older persons and pregnant women.ConclusionOur findings confirm that the home environment represents an important site for the spread of pathogens responsible for foodborne diseases. In order to adopt good hygiene practices in the home setting, consumers need to be informed about safety procedures of domestic food handling, storage and preparation.

Italy was one of the countries most affected by the number of people infected and dead during the first COVID-19 wave. The authors describe the rapid rollout of a population health clinical and organizational response in preparedness and capabilities to support the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Italian province of Modena. The authors review the processes, the challenges faced, and describe how excess demand for hospital services was successfully mitigated and thus overwhelming the healthcare services avoided the collapse of the local health care system. An analysis of bed occupancy in the region predicted during the first weeks of the epidemic. The SEIR model estimated the number of infected people under different containment measures. Community resources were mobilized to reduce provincial hospitals' burden of care. A population health approach, based on a radical reorganization of the workflow and emergency patient management, was implemented. The bed saturation of the Modena Healthcare Agency was measured by an ad hoc, newly implemented intensive care unit (ICU) bed occupancy and COVID-19 centralized governance dashboard. ICU bed occupancy increased by 114%, avoiding saturation of the Modena Healthcare Agency system. The Emilia-Romagna region achieved a higher rate of ICU bed availability at 2.15 ICU beds per 10,000 inhabitants as compared with community 1 ICU bed availability prior to the pandemic. Rapid and radical local reorganization of regional efforts helped inform the successful development and implementation of strategic choices within the hospital and the community to prevent the saturation of key facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools and universities to shift their activities online, influencing the adoption of health-related behaviours such as physical activity and healthy dietary habits. The present study investigates the changes in adherence to a healthy diet and regular physical activity in university students in Italy before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and understands the role of sociodemographic variables in creating the changes above. We conducted a repeated cross-sectional survey performing the same sampling strategy at the first data collection (T0) and second data collection (T1) with a combination of convenience and snowball sampling approaches. The sample is composed of a total of 2001 students, 60.2% women and 39.8% men, with an average age of 22.7 (±5.5 SD). At T1, 39.9% of the students reported regular physical activity. During the pandemic, however, many, especially male students, abandoned or reduced physical activity practice (T1 40%), with an increase in social media use (T0 52.1%; T1 90%). A direct association between very low frequency of physical activity and increased sedentary time (r = 0.2, p = 0.001) and between change in dietary style and increased Body Mass Index (BMI) value (r = 0.3, p = 0.002) was found. The multivariate analysis for the total sample showed that some sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, parents’ level of education, area of study, household type, and perception of one’s body influence eating behaviours and physical activity. Our findings suggest that universities should invest in the protection and promotion of the health of their students with specific awareness programmes, and further research should repeat the survey in the post-lockdown period to investigate the long-term effects on health-related behaviours.

AIM A randomised field trial was conducted to evaluate a school-based programme to prevent tobacco use in children and adolescents. SUBJECT AND METHODS Five hundred and thirty-four children and three hundred and eight adolescents were randomly select to receive or not receive the prevention programme. The prevention programme included: a) health facts and the effect of smoking; b) analysis of the mechanisms to start smoking; c) refusal skills training to deal with the social pressures to smoke. A questionnaire was administered before the intervention programme and two years later. RESULTS The prevalence rates of smoking in both group of children and adolescents resulted to be increased at the end of the study. Anyway, the difference of smoking prevalence between intervention and control group was statistically significant only for children group (from 18.3% to 18.8% for the intervention group, and from 17.8 % to 26.9% in the control group) (p = 0.035). As regards reasons that induced to start smoking, there was a significant increase of the issue "Because smokers are fool" (p = 0.004 for children; p < 0.001 for adolescents) and "Because smokers are irresponsible" (p ≤ 0.001 for both children and adolescents) in the experimental groups. CONCLUSION The results suggest that a school-based intervention programme on children and adolescent tobacco use, based on the development of cognitive and behavioural aspects, can be effective. After one year of intervention, smoking prevalence was significantly lower in children belonging to intervention group than in children not randomised to intervention. Targeting young children before they begin to smoke can be a successful way of prevention. AbstractAIM A randomised field trial was conducted to evaluate a school-based programme to prevent tobacco use in children and adolescents.SUBJECT AND METHODS Five hundred and thirty-four children and three hundred and eight adolescents were randomly select to receive or not receive the prevention programme. The prevention programme included: a) health facts and the effect of smoking; b) analysis of the mechanisms to start smoking; c) refusal skills training to deal with the social pressures to smoke. A questionnaire was administered before the intervention programme and two years later. RESULTSThe prevalence rates of smoking in both group of children and adolescents resulted to be increased at the end of the study. Anyway, the difference of smoking prevalence between intervention and control group was statistically significant only for children group (from 18.3% to 18.8% for the intervention group, and from 17.8 % to 26.9% in the control group) (p = 0.035). As regards reasons that induced to start smoking, there was a significant increase of the issue "Because smokers are fool" (p = 0.004 for children; p < 0.001 for adolescents) and "Because smokers are irresponsible" (p ≤ 0.001 for both children and adolescents) in the experimental groups. CONCLUSIONThe results suggest that a school-based intervention programme on children...

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The results of this study indicate a low prevalence of pathogenic dermatophytes in pet guinea pigs in Southern Italy but the presence of Epidermophyton and Scopulariopsis species in asymptomatic pet guinea pigs.

Although human visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a notifiable disease in Italy, there is evidence that the actual number of cases is far higher than that notified. A programme for active surveillance of VL in the 14 Italian endemic regions was launched by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. We report data collected during a 3-year period of active surveillance in Campania, a south Tyrrhenian region covering 4.5% of the Italian territory. Out of 120 clinically suspected cases referred to medical and diagnostic references centres, there were 52 confirmed VL cases (17.3/year), i.e. 10-fold more than previously notified. Most of the infection sites were in rural areas or peripheral districts of towns in hilly parts of Naples province. An epidemic cluster of 10 cases was identified in a microfocus of Caserta province. The biochemical analysis of 23 Leishmania stocks showed a zymodeme composition indicating Campania as an old and well-established focus of VL. The data obtained emphasize that the present notification system for VL in Italy is inadequate.