There is a hint of UniCamillus in Basilicata’s Lucani Ambiente e Salute (LucAS) project. During the 20th century, ancient Lucania was renamed the “Italian Texas” after hydrocarbon deposits were discovered underground at the beginning of the century. Since the 1970s this southern area of Italy has been characterised by intense industrial development in the petrochemical sector. Over the past few decades, the production scenario has changed in parallel with technological advancement, natural and economic-political events. Today, there is no doubt that this fact is progressively imposing itself throughout the region as an environmental and health issue that can no longer be postponed.
This is why the general public have recently expressed the need for better knowledge about the issue and the implementation of prevention measures. In order to respond in a systematic and organic manner to this legitimate demand, the Regione Basilicata has therefore launched a project aimed at facilitating the dissemination of a participatory culture of health surveillance and care. Innovative initiatives will be undertaken on a multi-year basis, involving local communities, institutions and companies to implement the solutions proposed by interdisciplinary scientific studies aimed at protecting the natural and man-made Lucanian environment.
And this is where the expertise and experience of UniCamillus comes into play. Within the LucAS project, numerous top-level institutional, scientific and academic bodies have got involved. These include not only Saint Camillus International University of Health and Medical Sciences (UniCamillus), but also other university institutes as well as Basilicata’s Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPAB), the Institute for Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems of the National Research Council in Naples (CNR-IRET), the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis of the National Research Council, the Italian National Institute of Health and many others.
In particular, UniCamillus, ARPAB and CNR-IRET have been identified as implementing subjects for the Biosystems intervention line, understood as bridges between environments and health. The ultimate goal of the project is to verify the degree of anthropic pollution determining negative effects on human health in the ecosystem. For this reason, a multi-disciplinary study is promoted, with the aim of characterising the three environmental matrices, i.e. air, water and soil.
The International Medical University of Rome will therefore contribute to activities supporting environmental as well as social policies for the protection and care of people’s health. Through this interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration, it will be possible to assess in advance the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pollutants on ecosystems and human life. The project also plans to develop the University’s Third Mission, the more social one, through the creation of an information system for the population.
Taking charge of the steps in this portion of the LucAS project involving UniCamillus is Professor Gianfranco Peluso, who teaches Applied Dietetic Technical Sciences and Nutrition and Health Promotion on the MSc Medicine and Surgery and MSc Human Nutrition Sciences at UniCamillus University.
“The Regione Basilicata”, says Professor Peluso, “has set out to create a network of high scientific and institutional value, with the ambition of placing itself at the highest level of epidemiological and environmental research in Italy. The idea is to trigger innovative implications in the field of surveillance, protection and primary prevention, and to generate a possible virtuous mechanism in the territory, precisely in the research sector, uniting the efforts of many excellent universities”.
The project proposal focuses on the study of environments at greater risk of pollution. The method of analysis is based on the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of what anthropogenic activities bring to the territory. “In general”, adds Professor Peluso, “the prevention of diseases of environmental origin requires a complex effort of action both on behaviour and lifestyles, and on the rules and institutional measures to ensure the safety of the population exposed to environmental risks”. Getting to the heart of what will actually be done, Prof. Peluso explained that “the proposed intervention stems from the awareness and need to provide information on the natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution affecting the region. In this way, not only will the environmental quality be assessed, but all the strategies necessary for the recovery of the area will be implemented accordingly. The information gathered will form the essential basis for a correct assessment of both the current state of the environment and the health impact that the environmental characteristics will have over time on the exposed populations”.