Experience of Safety and Health Promotion in Dolomites Area.

The mountain context represents a suitable setting for promoting health. In view of the Olympic Games, which are expected to take place in the Dolomites area in 2026, the outdoor Alpine environment must continue to meet all the health and safety requirements. Our recent experience, implemented in this area since summer 2024 through the Prevention Department of the Local Health Authority ULSS 1 Dolomiti, aims to encourage multi-sector preventive public health policies, in order to improve the "Shelters" ("rifugi", in Italian) hygiene, to strengthen the safety requirements, and to implement preventive projects.

Nutritional Project in School Setting: Analysis of Food Choices following Actions performed by Healthcare Workers.

Schools continue to represent one of the main settings that guarantee health promotion interventions, as it has been widely demonstrated in numerous fields that diet and eating habits are shaped in the early stages of life and maintained into adulthood. Through the food education promotion project, "Healthy Snack", implemented by the Prevention Department of the Local Health Authority ULSS 1 Dolomiti, the interventions carried out by healthcare workers have been evaluated over time to measure their effectiveness in terms of changes in eating habits considered incorrect, with a particular focus on snacks eaten at school.

Tuberculosis in a Migrant Population: Integrated Management of a Case through the Prevention Department and Hospital Services.

Among numerous public health actions, the Prevention Departments of Local Health Authorities take charge of the migrant asylum-seeking population for health assessments, for the implementation of preventive activities, and for any consequent actions. This report describes two cases of tuberculosis in Belluno Province managed by a multidisciplinary team made up of healthcare workers that involved numerous diagnostic, clinical, and prophylactic implications, as well as an analysis of the epidemiological aspects related to the incidence of cases along the migration route. Although the cases occurred in a northeastern Italian territory, the management methods described here may represent good practices to share on this operational line, which can promote the strengthening of cooperation between Health Authorities and Emergency Reception Centers to correctly identify cases of active tuberculosis that may not have been initially screen-detected.

Management of a Neisseria meningitidis case: factors that guarantee the effectiveness of supporting Public Health actions.

Among invasive bacterial diseases, meningococcal meningitis is a serious and contagious disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis. The disease has a high lethality grade and could have long-term sequelae. This paper describes a case of meningitis that occurred in the territory under the jurisdiction of Local Health Authority ULSS 1 Dolomiti and the related management methods.

Healthy Snack Project: Improving Healthy Choices through Multidisciplinary Food Education Actions.

School is one of the main settings where it is useful to guarantee health promotion actions, as it is well known that diet and eating habits that are shaped in the early stages of life are maintained through adulthood. The objective of this study was to carry out the "Healthy Snack" project to promote nutritional education in primary schools in the Province of Belluno in the 2022-2023 school year, in which 925 students were enrolled, and to evaluate the intervention in terms of changes in eating habits during their school breaks. Following the workshops performed by the healthcare workers (HCWs), medals were awarded, taking into account the quality of the participating students' mid-morning snacks, considering the food pyramid.

Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaigns in Veneto Region: Population Vaccination Centers as Support for the Traditional Outpatient Model.

The extraordinary vaccination campaigns of the COVID-19 pandemic era put organizational and operational systems to the test in numerous territorial contexts. In the Veneto region, the activation of population vaccination centers (CVPs) guaranteed the provision of vaccines to mountain areas. These centers, drive-in and building-based, improved the efficiency of dose administration in relation to similar conditions where healthcare workers (HCWs) were routinely involved in clinics.

Collective Catering Activities and Official Controls: Dietary Promotion, Sustainability and Future Perspectives.

Ensuring safe meals with suitable hygienic-sanitary and nutritional features is an essential requirement to guarantee health in different settings. This study aims to evaluate the compliance of collective catering menus adopted in both school canteens and healthcare facilities in a regional area where specific guidelines have been issued, assessing many matters from food weight to single courses and from the use of wholegrain pasta and bread to the rotation of seasonal fruit and vegetables. Overall, 85 menus, edited by freelance professionals and endorsed by the Food Hygiene and Nutrition Service staff of the Local Health Authority, were assessed from 2018 to 2022, highlighting critical issues potentially attributable at a local level to the lack of complete knowledge of the existence of guidelines and official reference documents among nutrition professionals.

The Preventive Health Professions in Italy: The Efficient Use of Resources, Skills and Best Practice during the Pandemic.

Health visitors (HVs) and environmental health officers (EHOs) are the healthcare workers (HCWs) who, in the Italian National Health Service, mainly operate in the prevention departments of local health authorities, guaranteeing the territorial activities specifically declared with the respective professional profiles. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it was necessary to reallocate all HCWs supporting Hygiene and Public Health Services involved on the front lines of the emergency, in order to perform preventive activities and to take immediate action to fight the spread of the virus. By means of an IT survey consisting of three sections, this study investigated how 960 HVs and EHOs dealt with this reallocation, with the shifting in service assignment, and with the perceived level of fatigue and pressure, through the application of skills acquired from university training.

Cutaneous Melanoma in Alpine Population: Incidence Trends and Clinicopathological Profile.

Previous studies associated high-level exposure to ultraviolet radiation with a greater risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM). This study focuses on the changing incidence of CMM over time (from 1990 to 2017) in the Veneto region of Northeast Italy, and its Alpine area (the province of Belluno). The clinicopathological profile of CMM by residence is also considered.

A new fully liquid presentation of MenACWY-CRM conjugate vaccine: Results from a multicentre, randomised, controlled, observer-blind study.

Background: The currently licensed quadrivalent MenACWY-CRM conjugate vaccine presentation consists of two vials (lyophilised MenA and liquid MenCWY) to be reconstituted before injection. A new fully liquid formulation in a single vial has been developed to further improve the vaccine presentation. Since the MenA structure is subject to hydrolytic degradation, this study was conducted to compare the immunogenicity and safety of the investigational MenACWY-CRM liquid vaccine with the licensed vaccine.

Halting the pandemic outside 'CORTINA2021' alpine world ski championships: a challenge for sport and public health in times of COVID-19.

Background: In February 2021 the "Cortina2021" Alpine World Ski Championships took place in the mountain town of Cortina d'Ampezzo (Italy), thus gaining the definition of "first sporting event of global significance in the time of covid-19 pandemic". Though the event took place behind closed doors and in a context of national public health restrictive measures, it counted almost 6,000 participants.

Methods: A rigorous "Covid-19 Prevention and Hygiene Protocol" was drawn up by the local and regional health authorities together with the organizing committee, in order to contain the risk of viral circulation within the venue.

Health Communication in COVID-19 Era: Experiences from the Italian VaccinarSì Network Websites.

In 2013, in a bid to combat Vaccine Hesitancy (VH) and provide information on vaccines by communicating with the general public and the health community (e.g., healthcare workers and public health operators), the Italian Society of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (S.

[Residential cohort study to assess the impact of emissions released by a cement plant on the health status of the population residing in Pederobba (Veneto Region, Northern Italy)].

Objectives: to assess the impact of a cement plant emissions on mortality, hospitalizations, and cancer incidence in the residents of the municipality of Pederobba (Veneto Region, Northern Italy).

Design: retrospective residential cohort study.

Setting And Participants: the study was conducted in Pederobba and in 7 neighbouring municipalities (Cavaso Del Tomba, Cornuda, Crocetta del Montello, Monfumo, Segusino, Valdobbiadene, Vidor).

Drive-through vaccinations prove successful in immunizing mountain communities against tick-borne encephalitis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted most of the routine outpatient activities in Italian hospitals and Prevention Departments, including those vaccinations which were not urgent and/or scheduled for children aged 0-6 years. Since June 2020, when the pandemic entered a milder phase, in the alpine Province of Belluno (Veneto, North-Eastern Italy), 12,152 doses of vaccine against tick-borne encephalitis have been administered by means of the innovative "drive-through" modality. No significant adverse events have occurred and popular demand has steadily grown, proving the "drive-through" approach to be safe, efficient and successful.

Italian Public Health Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Case Report from the Field, Insights and Challenges for the Department of Prevention.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is rapidly progressing globally, and Italy, as one of the main pandemic hotspots, may provide some hard lessons for other countries. In this paper, we summarize the current organizational capacity and provide a pragmatic and narrative account of strategies and activities implemented by the Department of Prevention (Dipartimento di Prevenzione)-the regional entity of the Local Health Authority of the Italian National Health Service in charge of public health-since the beginning of the outbreak. We conduct a preliminary analysis of general strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of the response strategies from a local perspective.

Safety in Wine Production: A Pilot Study on the Quality Evaluation of Wine in the Framework of UE Regulation.

In Italy, wine production is considered a sector of excellence, where the wines' appreciable sensory features are favored by environmental factors, including weather and climate conditions, which benefit territories with a specific vocation. The whole chain involves many economic and agri-food sector operators, and requires an in-depth assessment of specific risks for identifying critical points, keeping the entire production process under control, and ensuring product traceability. This article describes the results of a pilot study conducted in the Prosecco DOCG (Designations of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin) area, concerning the detection of residues of plant protection products in fifty wine bottles.

[From the traces in the wells of the urban aqueduct network to the subsequent prohibition of the use of glyphosate: the case of an area of high-intensity wine production in the province of Treviso, Veneto].

Glyphosate is the best-selling herbicide in the world and in 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer listed it among the "probable carcinogens for humans", opening a scientific debate that is still going on. On these premises, in 2016, extraordinary samplings of glyphosate, its metabolite AMPA, and a similar compound, ammonium glufosinate, were carried out in 12 wells of the water network intended for domestic consumption in the territory of the Local Health Unit 2 - District of Pieve di Soligo, Province of Treviso, Veneto region, Italy. The area includes 13 municipalities at high-intensity "Prosecco d.

Impact of Communication Measures Implemented During a School Tuberculosis Outbreak on Risk Perception among Parents and School Staff, Italy, 2019.

Risk perception has a significant impact on decisions people make when facing a threat: a mismatch between actual hazard and perceived risk can lead to inappropriate behaviours and suboptimal compliance to recommended public health measures. The present study was conducted in the aftermath of a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak that occurred in 2019 in a primary school in Italy. The aim was to evaluate the impact of communication measures implemented by local health authorities (including face-to-face meetings between LHAs and the local population, weekly press announcements, implementation of a telephone hotline and of an information desk, and social media communication), on risk perception among parents of schoolchildren and school staff, and to identify factors related to a change in risk perception before and after the said activities.

High rate of transmission in a pulmonary tuberculosis outbreak in a primary school, north-eastern Italy, 2019.

Italy is a low-incidence country for tuberculosis (TB). We describe a TB outbreak in a primary school in north-eastern Italy, involving 10 cases of active pulmonary disease and 42 cases of latent infection. The index case was detected in March 2019, while the primary case, an Italian-born schoolteacher, was likely infectious since January 2018.

Impact of breast cancer screening in a population with high spontaneous coverage with mammography.

Objective: The impact of organized screening programs on breast cancer (BC) mortality is unclear in an era of high spontaneous referral of women to mammography. The aim of this study was to analyze if the introduction of mammographic screening programs reduced BC mortality in the Veneto region, Italy, despite already widespread spontaneous access to mammography.

Methods: In Veneto, screening was introduced in different years between 1999 and 2009 across 21 local health units (LHUs), inviting asymptomatic women aged 50-69 years to undergo mammography biennially.