[Technical survey of safety levels established in building sites in the Pescara area]. / Indagine tecnico conoscitiva sul livello di sicurezza raggiunto nei cantieri edili della provincia di Pescara.

In 2006, in the context of the initiative aimed at "Promotion of safety and health of workers in construction yards", the Operative Unit of Occupational Health, University G. d'Annunzio, in collaboration with the Construction School of the Province of Pescara and INAIL, started a survey of construction yards around Pescara aimed at collecting data regarding respect of the specific law concerning construction yards and the risk perception of workers. The survey of 100 construction yards provided useful information towards a concise picture of safety levels obtained. In addition 300 interviews were carried out with workers to find out about their knowledge of accident prevention, how important they considered the use of personal protection devices, how often they used them, reasons for not using them, the devices most used,....and any injuries that occurred. The studied showed that, although the situation as improved compared to the past, further steps need to be taken.

[Occupational stress and job insecurity in men working in a university]. / Stress lavorativo e "job insecurity" in uomini che lavorano nell'università.

77 men working in a university were investigated. Trait and state anxiety were determined by STAI I and STAI II; job strain (job demand/decision latitude), social support and job insecurity were analysed by a 46 item Karasek's questionnaire and subjective symptoms by a 12 item test. The employees of a library (mean age 49 years), in contact with students, showed significantly higher values of job strain, STAI I, STAI II and subjective symptoms than a control group of employees with similar age. Young employees and sanitary staff with temporary employment showed higher level of job insecurity than control subjects with stable position. Blood cytotoxic activity (reported in another study) was significantly lower in the old employees with job strain or in the young employees with job insecurity (but not in the sanitary staff) than in the controls; this demonstrates that not only occupational stress but also job insecurity may play an important role in affecting the health status.