Prevalence of smoking habits, attitudes and knowledge on counteractive strategies among a sample of healthcare employees: results of the smoking-free health environments project in the province of Palermo, Italy.

Introduction: Tobacco use is responsible for over 7 million deaths annually, making smoking the leading cause of preventable mortality globally. Over the last two decades in Italy, the prevalence of smoking among physicians has consistently decreased, while it remains higher and is gradually decreasing among non-physician healthcare workers. The aim of this study was to investigate the Prevalence of smoking habits, attitudes, and knowledge on counteractive strategies among employees in the Primary Healthcare Facilities in the Province of Palermo, Italy.

Analysis of appeals against the ruling of occupational physicians lodged with the Prevention and Occupational Epidemiology Operative Unit, ASP Palermo (Palermo Health Authority), from 2008-2010.

Introduction: The responsibility of the Department for Prevention and Safety at the workplace of the Palermo Health Authority (ASP) is to monitor and coordinate the activity of occupational physicians operating in Palermo and its province. One of its obligations is to examine appeals "against the judgment of occupational physicians", "..

Screening for synthetic cannabinoids in hair by using LC-QTOF MS: a new and powerful approach to study the penetration of these new psychoactive substances in the population.

The current analytical technology for the determination of New Psychoactive Substances in biological samples is still largely inadequate, because the immunoassays are unsuitable for the detection of most of these compounds and the use of traditional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques is hampered by the lack of chromatographic standards and mass fragmentation patterns. Taking advantage of the molecular recognition capability of high-resolution mass spectrometry, the present work aimed to apply liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry for the rapid identification of New Psychoactive Substances in the hair, a peculiar tissue which "keeps memory" of the recent history of drug intake of the subject. All the samples were screened for the presence of 50 different New Psychoactive Substances (synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones and phenethylamines), substances that had been reported officially by the National Early Warning System in the period 2009-2011.

Micellar electrokinetic chromatography: a new simple tool for the analysis of synthetic cannabinoids in herbal blends and for the rapid estimation of their logP values.

For the first time a capillary separation based on micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) with diode array detection (DAD) was developed and validated for the rapid determination of synthetic cannabinoids in herbal blends. Separations were carried out on a 30 μm(ID) × 40 cm uncoated fused silica capillaries. The optimized buffer electrolyte was composed of 25 mM sodium tetraborate pH 8.

[Asbestos-related diseases observed in Palermo (Italy) among workers exposed to asbestos].

The aim of this study was to evaluate cases of asbestos-related diseases in workers exposed to asbestos in the province of Palermo (Italy) from 2005 to 2009. Data were collected from medical records and from reports from the Prevention and Safety in the Workplace Unit of the provincial health authorities of and between Palermo. Multinomial logistic regression showed a significant association between tobacco smoke and lung cancer and between starting work at an early stage and presence of asbestosis and pleural plaques.