Impact of the educational program "Igiene Insieme"in 1,991 Italian primary schools: student behavior and incidence of SARS-CoV-2.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of the health educational program "Igiene Insieme 2021/2022" on Italian primary school children's knowledge, attitudes and practice of hygiene and sanitation and to compare incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in schools participating the project with regional data of Lombardy and Apulia. METHODS: Participating schools were provided with a hygiene kit containing educational material for teachers and sanitizing products for students. We conducted a pre-post evaluation administering a questionnaire before and after the intervention. In addition, we compared SARS-CoV-2 incidence of the participating primary schools (225 in Lombardy and 120 in Apulia) to regional-level data. We tested the differences between groups by using the Chi-squared test. RESULTS: Of 1,991 schools, 472 responded to both questionnaires for a total of 16,988 students. 17.3% of the students learned the importance of handwashing in preventing infections, 22.6% when to wash hands, 18.5% the existence of alternative solutions in absence of soap and water, 23.2% how to correctly wash hands. A lower incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections was recorded in primary schools participating in the project as compared to the average regional incidence in Lombardy (9.6% vs.14.8%) and Apulia (10.7% vs.12.0%) for the same age group. CONCLUSIONS: We report an overall positive effect of health education interventions in primary schools. Although the limitations in the study design, our findings are important to inform planning, implementation and monitoring of health promotion campaigns in young generations so as to contribute to limit the risk of infection spread at the community level.

Epidemiology of psoriasis in Italy: burden, cost, comorbidities and patients' satisfaction. A systematic review.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The Italian data on psoriasis are partial and, in most cases, come from monocentric studies, not representative of the population. Our aim was to conduct a systematic review of the available evidence in order to get the overall picture of the Italian epidemiology (prevalence and incidence); burden of disease (direct and indirect costs, the impact on quality of life); comorbidities; and finally, the patients' satisfaction and acknowledgement of both the disease and the care services available. METHODS: This systematic review followed the guidelines of the Cochrane Collaboration and the Prepared Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) 2020. The literature search was conducted on PubMed/Medline and Scopus. RESULTS: Out of 387 retrieved articles, 41 were included in the analysis. Psoriasis is a frequent condition in Italy: the prevalence is between 1,8% and 4,8% and the incidence is between 107,742 and 230,62 per 100.000 person-years. The most frequent comorbidities associated to psoriasis are: diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression, cardiovascular diseases, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypercholesterolemia. The quality of life and severity of the disease are mostly affected by other concurrent diseases, early onset of the disease, low income, and low level of education. The costs of psoriasis were estimated between 500 euro and 15.000 euro depending on the disease's severity, the treatments used and hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, psoriasis is a high-impact chronic disease. It is therefore fundamental to advocate a multidisciplinary approach to obtain a better health outcome, the patients' management and the cost savings could benefit from it.

COVID-19 control school-based interventions: characteristics and impact of a national-level educational programme in Italy.

OBJECTIVE: to report on the characteristics and impact of "Igiene Insieme", a school-based national-level educational programme designed and implemented in Italy to promote hygiene and sanitation in schools, stimulate healthy behaviors in teachers, students and their families, and ultimately fight COVID-19. METHODS: the project targeted kindergartens and primary schools and included three components: the design and delivery of innovative health education interventions to i) students and ii) teachers, and iii) the provision of sanitation products in schools. Here we describe the intervention, report on the project penetration and evaluate its impact. First, a survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 1,005 teachers to evaluate the project at the national level, then a retrospective analysis was conducted in the Lombardy region comparing SARS-CoV-2 infection incidence rate in schools participating to the project with regional burden data. RESULTS: Over 8,000 Italian schools joined the project, for a total of 32,000 teachers and 1.1 million students. Survey respondents rated the educational interventions and the provision of sanitation products as excellent (66.6% and 82.5%, respectively) and reported the project to have greatly impacted on students' health behaviors. In the Lombardy region, 271 primary schools (11%) joined the project and 140 (52%) provided COVID-19 burden data. Over the study period, SARS-CoV-2 infection incidence rate in schools participating in the project was 14% lower as compared to regional-level data (643 per 100,000 vs. 747 per 100,000). CONCLUSIONS: We raise awareness on the importance of promoting health education and infectious diseases primary prevention in schools, and to plan, implement and monitor student-centred interventions during and beyond COVID-19 times.