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Aim of the study was to assess the occupational risk due to petroleum facility exposure, by sampling at the Oil and Gas plant in Southern Italy on both personnel and area. For chemicals with no available TLV, an extensive review of scientific literature on the issue was achieved, in order to define international benchmarks, for comparison. Concerning benzene, neither the outdoor area maximum value of 0.072 mg/m3 nor the personal maximum value of 0.22 mg/m3 were over the occupational exposure limit (OEL) at the Oil and Gas center plant. Similarly, the indoor area maximum value of 0.055 mg/m3 was below the OEL. Also the indoor and outdoor maximums for total VOC were below the LEED requirement, and the total VOC outdoor personal maximum was slightly above the LEED requirement. However, since the LEED requirement is for indoor air quality, this recommendation is not directly applicable to the determined total VOC maximum for outdoor personal samples.

Since health care institutions are particularly concerned with resource savings, optimizing the efficiency of vaccination point of dispensing is a significant policy priority during epidemics or low-resource settings. In this regard, the decision to adopt proper organizational models and take the ease-of-use of vaccines into account is of paramount importance for resource-saving. Evidence is therefore urgently needed for healthcare decision-makers. In this paper we propose the use a simulation optimization approach. In particular, as a specific case study, we show how it could be possible to obtain up to 17.5% time saving during a meningococcal vaccination session and overall cost-savings (e.g., up to 24M Euros in real world vaccination scenarios).

Childhood malnutrition remains a major public health problem throughout the developing world. When CMAM is not fully covered or scaled-up in all its components by local health authorities, nutritional programs already existing and implemented in the field hold a great potential for cooperating to children treatment and care, not neglecting any form of child malnutrition. Identification of main gaps in programmes’ performance, with targeted and sustainable changes made accordingly, even when they seem small, can have high impact on programmes’ outcomes, therefore saving even more children lives.

Legionella colonization in hot water systems belongs to a great number of factors, while the prevention of infection cases is based, above all, on the correct management of water systems, which includes several continuous disinfection and acute decontamination systems. The aim of our study was to establish Legionella prevalence and load in different types of structures and evaluate the effectiveness of the decontamination treatments most frequently carried on in our territory. We collected hot water samples from the distal points of sports centers, tourist accommodation facilities, retirement homes and group homes. All water samples were tested by culture method for the presence of Legionella, and species and serogroup identification were carried out through Latex test and PCR. For each water sample we determined also the Heterotrophic Plate Count (HPC) at 22 °C and 37 °C. Statistics were performed through STATA. Legionella was found in 26% samples collected from 29% of the inspected structures. L. pneumophila sg1 was detected in 12.4% of samples, while L. pneumophila sg2-14 in 11.6%. The bacterium was more commonly found in Hotels’ (57%), Sports centers’ (41%) and Retirement homes’ (29%) hot water systems. We often identified a high microbial contamination and a significantly higher prevalence of Legionella for both intermediate values of HPC 22 °C and HPC 37 °C. Legionella was still found in the water systems after decontamination in 68% of inspected facilities.The high prevalence of Legionella found represents a health risk for general population, suggesting that the management of the water systems of private facilities often needs to be improved.

In the context of the A3 Action Group-European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, several intervention programmes have been implemented in order to prevent social isolation, physical decline, malnutrition and adverse drug reactions. Further studies need to investigate the implementation of frailty models within a limited geographical area of a health service organisation context in order to evaluate the organisation of a service network based on the frailty approach as a comprehensive method of addressing chronic diseases and health and social needs and preventing health inequalities.

Environment and human health are now considered an inseparable binomial. Thanks to European policy, environment quality - in the broad sense - has considerably improved in the EU over the last decade, but there are still old and new challenges to be addressed if we wish to significantly reduce that burden of 24% of deaths and 22% of DALYs.