Browsing by Author "Leonardi, Giovanni S."

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Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 4
Building Competency To Deal With Environmental Health Challenges: Experiences and a Proposal
(Frontiers Media Sa, 2024) Leonardi, Giovanni S.; Zeka, Ariana; Ashworth, Matthew; Bouland, Catherine; Crabbe, Helen; Duarte-Davidson, Raquel; Lauriola, Paolo; Gökdemir, Özden
The global landscape of professional training in environmental health, encompassing ecological public health or environmental public health, lacks consistent global implementation for training programs for public health practitioners, clinical professionals, and individuals across various disciplines, as well as standardized curricula for undergraduates. This training gap is related to the overall lack of capacity in addressing the population impacts of the triple challenge of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change, impeding the worldwide transition to and development of ecological sustainability. This paper reviews existing approaches and their potential to address implementation challenges within the necessarily tight timescale. Spreading of best practice appears feasible even without substantial additional resources, through the reorientation of current practices via comprehensive multi-disciplinary training programs. By adopting international best practices of training in environmental health, the focus in training and education can shift from future decision-makers to enhancing the competencies of current professionals and their institutions.
Citation - WoS: 5
Citation - Scopus: 5
Family Doctors To Connect Global Concerns Due To Climate Change With Local Actions: State-Of Art and Some Proposals
(Wiley, 2021) Lauriola, Paolo; Serafini, Alice; Santamaria, Mariagrazia; Guicciardi, Stefano; Kurotschka, Peter K.; Leonardi, Giovanni S.; Zeka, Ariana; Gökdemir, Özden
Climate change (CC) is the most challenging environmental health (EH) concern. Air pollution is closely linked to CC. However, many CC-health-related conditions (i.e., allergic diseases, asthma, hypertension, fluid and electrolyte disorders, child and adult obesity, type 2 diabetes, vector-borne diseases) are not usually counted, either because they do not cause death or require hospital admission/emergency triage. They are the vast majority of health care seeking generally treated by family doctors (FDs) and family pediatricians (FPs). FDs/FPs are often not aware of CC-health-impacts. Their potential role in tackling such a global challenge through their local influence on individual and collective attitudes and policies is not considered. Proper FD training could fill these gaps, raise awareness of their role, and implement EH FDs/FPs-based surveillance networks to collect, analyze, interpret, and report EH data to inform EH-related Policy. FDs and FPs, organized in sentinel physicians' networks, could play a key role in advising policy-makers at the local and regional level in designing interventions adapted to climate-related issues. Such experiences are rare worldwide and not well known. We will describe and discuss them in detail to share successful local examples.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 5
A New Environmental Public Health Practice To Manage Current and Future Global Health Challenges Through Education, Training, and Capacity Building
(Frontiers Media Sa, 2024) Leonardi, Giovanni S.; Zeka, Ariana; Ashworth, Matthew; Bouland, Catherine; Crabbe, Helen; Duarte-Davidson, Raquel; Lauriola, Paolo
Unsustainable globalisation of economic activities, lifestyles and social structures has contributed to environmental degradation, posing major threats to human health at the local and global levels. All these problems including climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss represent challenges that are unlikely to be met with existing approaches, capabilities and tools. This article acknowledges the need for well-prepared practitioners from many walks of life to contribute to environmental public health (EPH) functions thus strengthening society's capacity and capability to respond effectively and in a timely manner to such complex situations and multiple challenges. It envisions a new EPH practice addressing questions on: Why do this? What needs to be addressed? Who will do it? How can it be implemented? This article focuses on the main challenging EPH issues worldwide and how they could be addressed using a conceptual framework for training. A companion article shows how they have been tackled in practice, providing ideas and experiences.
Citation - WoS: 33
Citation - Scopus: 41
On the Importance of Primary and Community Healthcare in Relation To Global Health and Environmental Threats: Lessons From the Covid-19 Crisis
(Bmj Publishing Group, 2021) Lauriola, Paolo; Martin-Olmedo, Piedad; Leonardi, Giovanni S.; Bouland, Catherine; Verheij, Robert; Duckers, Michel L. A.; van Tongeren, Martie; Gökdemir, Özden
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that primary healthcare systems play a critical role in clinical care, such as patient screening, triage, physical and psychological support and also in promoting good community advice and awareness in coordination with secondary healthcare and preventive care. Because of the role of social and environmental factors in COVID-19 transmission and burden of disease, it is essential to ensure that there is adequate coordination of population-based health services and public health interventions. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the primary and community healthcare (P&CHC) system's weaknesses worldwide. In many instances, P&CHC played only a minor role, the emphasis being on hospital and intensive care beds. This was compounded by political failures, in supporting local community resilience. Placing community building, social cohesion and resilience at the forefront of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis can help align solutions that provide a vision of 'planetary health'. This can be achieved by involving local well-being and participation in the face of any pervasive health and environmental crisis, including other epidemics and large-scale ecological crises. This paper proposes that P&CHC should take on two critical roles: first, to support local problem-solving efforts and to serve as a partner in innovative approaches to safeguarding community well-being; and second, to understand the local environment and health risks in the context of the global health perspective. We see this as an opportunity of immediate value and broad consequence beyond the control of the COVID-19 pandemic.