ABSTRACT
Increasingly complex knowledge, new technologies, global-scale know-how needs to be translated on the local scale, to be truly effective. In this scenario, the role of the university is to codify this path into cognitive and practical terms, combining educational and training objectives with the knowledge transfer at the local level, as part of the third mission, by offering field-based learning. This approach has been adopted in recent years in the Urban Planning Techniques courses held within the Unique Cycle Master degree in Building Engineering and Architecture at the University of Bologna where, in the a.y. 2019/2020, it was proposed to students to measure themselves on a real case study such as the drafting process of the new General Urban Plan of the Municipality of Castelfranco Emilia (MO). However, the ongoing unexpected Covid-19 pandemic has challenged the teaching and planning process. It has imposed limitations and outlined new challenges, but at the same time it has allowed - both students and civil servants - to explore the opportunities offered by the digital resources available and by the panoramic navigation tools within the built environment, which have revealed some key potentials that so far have been only partially explored. Therefore, this paper intends to show, through a real case application, how the digitization of information and the new methodologies for teaching urban planning techniques can contribute to improve the accuracy of the knowledge available at the micro/ building scale, which is at the basis of the definition of tailored regeneration practices.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The recent COVID-19 pandemic pointed out new burdens for researchers on mental health and that evidence-based (EB) studies on vulnerable populations are timely needed. The present paper aims at analysing the impact of suspicious of SARS-COV-2 infection in a cohort of parents presented at 3 major hospitals (spread between north and center of Italy) during the Italian COVID-19 pandemic phase 1. METHODS: Participants of the present cross-sectional, multicenter study were parental couples of children suspected to have COVID-19 who underwent testing with nasopharyngeal swabbing. All subjects were assessed by means of the: Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) in order to evaluate Post-traumatic stress (PTSS), anxiety, and depressive symptoms, respectively. OUTCOMES: Results evidenced that parents whose children tested positive for COVID-19 were more prone to developing PTSS, anxiety and depressive symptoms. The same results emerged for parents who had quarantined as opposed to those who had not. Moreover, patients who suffered economic damage showed a higher prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms, whereas PTSS was more common among unemployed subjects and among mothers. INTERPRETATION: This study identified a mental health strain represented by parenting a child who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further EB research is needed to develop evidence-driven strategies to reduce adverse psychological impacts and related psychiatric symptoms in caregivers of COVID-19 infected children during the next phases of the pandemic.