[Reassessment of burden of occupational fatal injuries in Italy, 1951-2017].

Background: occupational injuries in Italy are registered primarily by the Italian National Institute for insurance against accidents at work (Inail); its statistics show the number of events by consequence type (temporary, permanent, fatal). Data prior to 2001 include fatalities only if benefits were paid to survivors entitled to compensation, typically spouse and/or children.

Objectives: to estimate the number of fatal injuries occurred to workers without survivors entitled to compensation, not considered in INAIL statistics for the period 1951-2000; to evaluate years lived with disability (YLD) years of life lost (YLL), disability-adjusted life years (DALY) caused by all occupational injuries occurred in Italy, period 1951-2016.

A Scoping Review on How to Make Hospitals health Literate Healthcare Organizations.

The concept of health literacy is increasingly being recognised as not just an individual trait, but also as a characteristic related to families, communities, and organisations providing health and social services. The aim of this study is to identify and describe, through a scoping review approach, the characteristics and the interventions that make a hospital a health literate health care organisation (HLHO), in order to develop an integrated conceptual model. We followed Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage scoping review framework, refined with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology, to identify the research questions, identify relevant studies, select studies, chart the data, and collate and summarize the data.

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An Umbrella Review and Narrative Synthesis of the Effectiveness of Interventions Aimed at Decreasing Food Prices to Increase Food Quality.

Background: sustainability of population diet is a public health concern: the high price of healthy food is one of the main causes of diet-related health problems. The aim of this study is to synthesize the evidence produced by systematic reviews that evaluated the effectiveness of decreasing healthy food prices to improve accessibility in order to positively modify the dietary pattern.

Methods: We carried out a review of systematic reviews that examined the effects of the interventions, by exploring the online databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and hand-searching the reference lists.

Heat Stress Perception among Native and Migrant Workers in Italian Industries-Case Studies from the Construction and Agricultural Sectors.

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of hazard events such as heat waves, with important effects in several European regions. It is of importance to consider overall effects as well as specific impact on vulnerable population groups such as outdoor workers. The agricultural and construction sectors represent two strategic occupational fields that in relatively recent years involve an increasing number of migrant workers, and therefore require a better management of cultural aspects, that may interact with and impact on heat-related health risk.

Evaluation of the impact of heat stress on the occurrence of occupational injuries: Meta-analysis of observational studies.

Background: Growing evidence indicates that the exposure to high heat levels in the workplace results in health problems in workers. A meta-analysis was carried out to summarize the epidemiological evidence of the effects of heat exposure on the risk of occupational injuries.

Methods: A search strategy was conducted to retrieve studies on the effects of climate change on occupational injury risk.

Impact of climate change on occupational health and productivity: a systematic literature review focusing on workplace heat.

Background: With climate change, mean annual air temperatures are getting hotter and extreme weather events will become more and more common in most parts of the world.

Objectives: As part of the EU funded project HEAT-SHIELD we conducted a systematic review to summarize the epidemiological evidence of the effects of global warming-related heat exposure on workers' health and productivity.

Methods: Three separate searches, focused, respectively, on: i) heat-related illness (HRI), cardiovascular, respiratory and kidney diseases; ii) traumatic injuries; and iii) vector-borne diseases or vectors distribution, were conducted in PubMed.

Observed Differences between Males and Females in Surgically Treated Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Among Non-manual Workers: A Sensitivity Analysis of Findings from a Large Population Study.

Objectives: We aimed at assessing whether differences among males and females in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) epidemiology might be attributable to segregation with respect to occupational biomechanical exposures or differential access to care by sex.

Methods: We analysed surgically treated cases of CTS occurring among non-manual workers in Tuscany between 1997 and 2000. We conducted a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the difference in occupational biomechanical exposures between males and females necessary to explain the observed incidence rate ratios.

Reduction of excavation face collapse risk in tunnelling.

Unlabelled: Two large road tunnels, recently developed near Florence, showed instabilities of the excavation face which subsequently caused sixteen collapses. Due to the risk for workers' safety, the public authority for occupational health and safety (ASL) has monitored the failure rate and other background variables in order to assess the possible correlations between risk reductions, its own actions, and those of the various safety actors involved.

Objectives: To evaluate if the interventions carried out by the design team were able to reduce the risks of collapse and which of the ASL actions and/or which other factors were more effective in changing the attitudes of the parties involved, leading to a more expensive but safer project variant.

[Effects of the work limitations on the career path of a cohort of health workers].

Background: The median age of the workforce, and of healthcare workers in particular, is increasing, resulting in a reduced work capacity. This may prompt the occupational physician to issue fitness for work limitations.

Objectives: To examine the health surveillance data collected over 20 years on the employees of a large healthcare institution to identify the effects of the limitations imposed on their career paths.

[Delphi consensus on the monitoring tools of main individual risk factors for chronic diseases by the company doctor].

Background: Data on individual risk factors for chronic diseases (smoking, physical activity, body mass) are collected by company physicians in heterogeneous ways. This makes comparisons, researches and evaluations difficult.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to find a consensus on evaluation tools for chronic diseases risk factors and for health promotion programs in workplaces that could be performed by company physicians during their clinical activity.

PubMed search filters for the study of putative outdoor air pollution determinants of disease.

Objectives: Several PubMed search filters have been developed in contexts other than environmental. We aimed at identifying efficient PubMed search filters for the study of environmental determinants of diseases related to outdoor air pollution.

Methods: We compiled a list of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and non-MeSH terms seeming pertinent to outdoor air pollutants exposure as determinants of diseases in the general population.

Health services and health literacy: from the rationale to the many facets of a fundamental concept. A literature review.

Background: The aim of this study is to make a critical analysis of the different definitions of health literacy to provide a framework of the concept.

Methods: A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, Health Evidence, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and Cochrane Library. Google and OpenGrey were searched to find additional papers and unpublished works.

[The post-mortem external examination in Italy: critical issues and perspectives].

The purpose of the postmortem external examination is to ascertain death and authorize burial. Requirements regarding external postmortem examinations and the tasks of physicians having this specific duty, vary in different regions of Italy. In this study, we analyzed the rationale and role of physicians performing post mortem external examinations.

[Requirements of the system for registering occupational diseases: experience in comparison].

The main characteristics of the OSH monitoring systems in use in Europe are described. We refer the results of a survey carried out in six different European countries using the ODIT tool for assessing the quality of these recordings.

[Efficacy--appropriateness].

I discuss the meaning and differences between the Appropriateness and Efficacy in the prevention of occupational risks and damage. It is argued that to be "appropriate" an intervention should be suitable, keeping with the circumstances, while the intervention that achieves the goal is "effective". In practice, the appropriateness is very used in the field of clinical medicine, with reference to the treatment, while in the prevention it is usual to use with greater frequency the term of effectiveness.

Air temperature exposure and outdoor occupational injuries: a significant cold effect in Central Italy.

Objective: To investigate the short-term effect of air temperature on outdoor occupational injuries (out_OI) in Central Italy, also by taking different geographical factors and employment sectors of workers into account.

Methods: Out_OI for all of Tuscany (Central Italy), from 2003 to 2010 (n=162,399), were provided by the National Institute of Insurance for Occupational Illness and Injury. Representative daily meteorological data of the geographical area under study were obtained from the European Reanalysis-interim climatological reanalysis archive.

[Fatal injuries at work in Tuscany Region (Central Italy): content analysis of newspapers].

Objectives: to describe how journalists report events such as fatal accidents work through the newspapers.

Design: analysis of the textual content of titles and texts, using qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Setting And Participants: 184 articles related to 180 work-related fatalities occurred in Tuscany Region (Central Italy) in the period 2008-2009 were examined.

PubMed search strings for the study of agricultural workers' diseases.

Background: Several optimized search strategies have been developed in Medicine, and more recently in Occupational Medicine. The aim of this study was to identify efficient PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles regarding putative occupational determinants of agricultural workers' diseases.

Methods: We selected the Medical Subjects Heading (MeSH) term agricultural workers' diseases and six MeSH terms describing farm work (agriculture, agrochemicals NOT pesticides, animal husbandry, pesticides, rural health, rural population) alongside 61 other promising terms.

Incidence rates of surgically treated rhegmatogenous retinal detachment among manual workers, non-manual workers and housewives in Tuscany, Italy.

Purpose: Candidate risk factors for idiopathic rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) include heavy manual handling (requiring Valsalva's maneuver). We assessed incidence rates of surgically treated idiopathic RRD among manual workers, non-manual workers and housewives resident in Tuscany, Italy.

Methods: We retrieved all hospital discharge records bearing a principal diagnosis corresponding to RRD coupled with retinal surgery for any resident of Tuscany during 1997-2009.

Carpal tunnel syndrome among ewe dairy farmers in Sardinia, Italy.

Background: The region of Sardinia, Italy is known internationally for the production of cheeses made from ewe's milk. Although the use of automated milking equipment is available in ewe dairy operations, traditional hand milking is still performed on many ewe farms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) among farmers that manually milk ewes.

Hidden effectiveness? Results of hand-searching Italian language journals for occupational health interventions.

Objective: To compare the yield of hand-searching with optimised electronic search strategies in retrieving occupational health (OH) intervention studies published in a language other than English.

Methods: The authors systematically hand-searched and screened reports of OH intervention studies published in Italian in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1990 and 2008. The authors evaluated how many of them met the Cochrane Occupational Safety and Health Review Groups (OSHRG) definition of being an OH intervention study and how many potentially relevant studies retrieved by hand-searching would not be found by PubMed alone using the OSHRG's most specific and most sensitive search strings.

[Comparison between two different Disability Weights calculations: the case of occupational injuries].

Aim: To introduce the concept of DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years), in order to calculate the burden of occupational injuries and to compare the disability weights methodology applied by the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL) to occupational injuries, with respect to the methodology adopted by the World Health Organization in the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), in order to facilitate, on a regional-national basis, the future application of estimates of Burden of Disease due to this phenomenon, based on data available from the NHS.

Design: In the first part of the present study, a comparison between the theoretical GBD methodology, based on Disability Weights, and the INAIL methodology based on Gradi di inabilità (Degree of Disability) (GI) described in the table of impairments is made, using data on occupational injuries occurred in Tuscany from 2001 to 2008. Given the different criteria adopted by WHO and INAIL for the classification of injuries sequelae, in the second part, two equations described in the literature have been applied in order to correct systematic biases.