Starting from a previous experience carried out by the working group “Building and Environmental Hygiene” of the Italian Society of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (SItI), the aim of the present work is to define new strategic goals for achieving a “Healthy and Salutogenic City”, which will be useful to designers, local governments and public bodies, policy makers, and all professionals working at local health agencies. Ten key points have been formulated: 1. climate change and management of adverse weather events; 2. land consumption, sprawl, and shrinking cities; 3. tactical urbanism and urban resilience; 4. urban comfort, safety, and security perception; 5. strengths and weaknesses of urban green areas and infrastructures; 6. urban solid waste management; 7. housing emergencies in relation to socio-economic and environmental changes; 8. energy aspects and environmental planning at an urban scale; 9. socio-assistance and welfare network at an urban scale: importance of a rational and widespread system; and 10. new forms of living, conscious of coparticipation models and aware of sharing quality objectives. Design strategies, actions, and policies, identified to improve public health and wellbeing, underline that the connection between morphological and functional features of urban context and public health is crucial for contemporary cities and modern societies.

Aging of the workforce is a growing problem. As workers age, their physical, physiological and psychosocial capabilities change. Keeping older workers healthy and productive is a key goal of European labor policy and health promotion is a key to achieve this result. Previous studies about workplace health promotion (WHP) programs are usually focused on the entire workforce or to a specific topic. Within the framework of the EU-CHAFEA ProHealth65+ project, this paper aims to systematically review the literature on WHP interventions specifically targeted to older workers (OWs). This systematic review was conducted by making a comprehensive search of MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science, SCOPUS, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases. Search terms included ageing (and synonyms), worker (and synonyms), intervention (and synonyms), and health (and synonyms). The search was limited to papers in English or Italian published between January, 1st 2000 and May, 31st 2015. Relevant references in the selected articles were also analyzed. Of the 299 articles initially identified as relating to the topic, 18 articles met the inclusion criteria. The type, methods and outcome of interventions in the WHP programs retrieved were heterogenous, as was the definition of the age at which a worker is considered to be ‘older’. Most of the available studies had been conducted on small samples for a limited period of time. Our review shows that, although this issue is of great importance, studies addressing WHP actions for OWs are few and generally of poor quality. Current evidence fails to show that WHP programs improve the work ability, productivity or job retention of older workers. In addition, there is limited evidence that WHP programs are effective in improving lifestyles and concur to maintain the health and well-being of older workers. There is a need for future WHP programs to be well-designed so that the effectiveness and cost-benefit of workplace interventions can be properly investigated.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the psychological wellbeing of workers worldwide. Certain coping styles may increase burnout risk. To investigate the relationship between burnout and coping styles, a systematic review was performed.Methods: Following the PRISMA statements, three databases were screened up until October 2022, including research articles written in English language and investigating the relationship between burnout and coping strategies in workers. The quality of articles was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.Results: The initial search resulted in 3,413 records, 15 of which were included in this review. Most studies were performed on healthcare workers (n = 13, 86.6%) and included a majority of female workers (n = 13, 86.7%). The most used burnout assessment questionnaire was the Maslach Burnout Inventory (n = 8, 53.3%), and the most used coping assessment tool was the Brief-COPE (n = 6, 40.0%). Task-related coping was a protective factor for burnout in all four studies investigating its correlation with burnout dimensions. Two of the four studies investigating emotion-oriented coping found that it was protective while the other two found that it was predictive of burnout. All five studies investigating avoidance-oriented coping and burnout dimensions found that this coping style was predictive of burnout.Discussion: Task-oriented and adaptive coping were protective for burnout, avoidance-oriented, and maladaptive coping were predictive factors of burnout. Mixed results were highlighted concerning emotion-oriented coping, suggesting that different outcomes of this coping style may depend on gender, with women relying more on it than men. In conclusion, further research is needed to investigate the effect of coping styles in individuals, and how these correlates with their unique characteristics. Training workers about appropriate coping styles to adopt may be essential to enact prevention strategies to reduce burnout incidence in workers.

Culture, religion and health are closely intertwined, profoundly affecting people’s attitudes and behaviors as well as their conception and experience of illness and disease. In order to analyze the impact of religion in the current COVID-19 pandemic, we performed a literature review investigating both the scientific and grey literature on the topic. COVID-19 outbreaks reported in pilgrimages and religious ceremonies around the world—especially in the first wave of the pandemic wave—and the role played by religion in conveying culturally sensitive information about COVID-19 are some of the evidence we reviewed. Our research highlights how religions have represented, on the one hand, a risk for the spread of the virus and, on the other, a precious opportunity to engage people, and in particular minorities, in fighting the pandemic. To overcome this pandemic and to be prepared for similar ones in the future, scientists, politicians and health professionals should acknowledge the role that culture and religion play in people’s lives and how it can assist in tackling complex health challenges.

Long COVID-19 is a term used to describe the symptomatic sequelae that develop after suffering from COVID-19. Very few studies have investigated the impact of COVID-19 sequelae on employment status. The aim of this research was to characterise sequelae of COVID-19 in a population of workers who tested positive for COVID-19, with a follow-up within one year of the acute illness, and to analyse the possible association between this and changes in the workers’ occupational status. In this retrospective cohort study, a questionnaire was administered to 155 workers; descriptive, univariate (chi-square tests), and multivariate (logistic regression model) analyses were carried out. The mean age was 46.48 years (SD ± 7.302); 76 participants were males (49.7%), and 33 participants reported being current smokers (21.3%). Overall, 19.0% of patients reported not feeling fully recovered at follow-up, and 13.7% reported a change in their job status after COVID-19. A change in occupational status was associated with being a smoker (OR 4.106, CI [1.406–11.990], p = 0.010); hospital stay was associated with age > 46 years in a statistically significant way (p = 0.025) and with not feeling fully recovered at follow-up (p = 0.003). A persistent worsening in anxiety was more common in women (p = 0.028). This study identifies smoking as a risk factor for workers not able to resume their job; furthermore, occupational physicians should monitor mental health more closely after COVID-19, particularly in female workers.

There is increasing evidence that indoor air quality and contaminated surfaces provide an important potential source for transmission of pathogens in hospitals. Airborne hospital microorganisms are apparently harmless to healthy people. Nevertheless, healthcare settings are characterized by different environmental critical conditions and high infective risk, mainly due to the compromised immunologic conditions of the patients that make them more vulnerable to infections. Thus, spread, survival and persistence of microbial communities are important factors in hospital environments affecting health of inpatients as well as of medical and nursing staff. In this paper, airborne and aerosolized microorganisms and their presence in hospital environments are taken into consideration, and the factors that collectively contribute to defining the infection risk in these facilities are illustrated.