7. Social Investment and Infrastructure

Introduction: The Welfare Lesson from the Great Recession Ten years after the first economic crisis of twenty-first century capitalism, Europe seems to have passed the nadir of the Great Recession. Time to count our blessings: a rerun of the Great Depression has been avoided and recovery, albeit timid, is under way, while unemployment and poverty are coming down. The jury is still out on whether economic and job growth will return to pre-crisis levels. Unemployment remains high in the Europea..

Social investment and infrastructure

Ten years after the first economic crisis of twenty-first century capitalism, Europe seems to have passed the nadir of the Great Recession. Time to count our blessings: a rerun of the Great Depression has been avoided and recovery, albeit timid, is under way, while unemployment and poverty are coming down. The jury is still out on whether economic and job growth will return to pre-crisis levels. Unemployment remains high in the European Union (EU), especially in the economies heavily scarred by the European debt crisis, such as Greece and Spain. The political aftershocks of the Great Recession — ranging from a rather hard Brexit, the rise of populism in Western Europe, the spread of illiberal nationalism in Eastern Europe, and escalating trade tensions between China and the United States (US) — forecast the deceleration of the world economy, and the challenges of a costly transformation into a greener world economy now confront the European Union project, anchored on a premise of peace, prosperity and democracy, underpinned by an existential predicament

Dentists' perceptions, attitudes, knowledge, and experience about child abuse and neglect in northeast Italy

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze dentists' perceptions, attitudes, knowledge and experience about child abuse and neglect (CAN) in an area of northeast Italy and the factors affecting the recognition and reporting of CAN cases. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred six dentists working in both public and private sectors in the provinces of Padua and Treviso were interviewed by a single operator. Descriptive and assessing association analyses were carried out. RESULTS: Dentists' perceptions about CAN is low, and these professionals have a poor attitude toward confronting it according to the code of conduct and laws. Available information and education are also poor Education affects the detection and the reporting of CAN cases in a relevant way. Female gender is another factor that affects the attitude and the perception of CAN. CONCLUSIONS: The results, which are consistent with other studies, show that there is a general lack of knowledge about CAN that prevents dentists from detecting and identifying suspected cases. Despite its frequent occurrence among dental patients, neglect is the least known and identified type of abuse. Education is the critical element in enhancing the ability of professionals to detect cases

Study of a lead glass-calorimeter with vacuum phototriode read-out

A prototype calorimeter of lead glass bars read by one-stage vacuum photomultipliers (triodes) has been tested at CERN with electrons in the energy range 2–30 GeV. Different glass-triode combinations have been compared. An electronic amplification noise corresponding to about 30 MeV has been obtained. The space resolution has been measured to be 4.4 mm on average

Breastfeeding and presence of the companion of woman's choice during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: regional population-based routine data and best practices at birth

Objectives: to describe the monthly trend of breastfeeding during hospitalization and the presence of companion of woman's choice during labour and birth, and the key regional responders' perspective of homogeneity/heterogeneity of the presence of the support person, before, during (February-May 2020), and after the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in a few Italian Regions.Design: two-phase study.Setting and participants: data from the italian birth certificate of six Italian Regions between 01.01.2019 and 31.03.2021 were analysed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the key regional respondents.Main outcome measures: the frequency distributions of breastfeeding and the presence of companion of woman's choice were calculated as a whole and for each Region.Results: the infant feeding practices experienced smaller changes during COVID-19 pandemic than the presence of the companion of woman's choice during labour and birth, from January 2019 to March 2021. The highest value of exclusive breastfeeding was recorded in September 2020 (72.1%; 95%CI 71.3-72.8) in all Regions, while the lowest was recorded in March 2021 (62.5%; 95%CI 61.5-63.4). The presence of companion of woman's choice during labour and birth decreased during the pandemic and did not re-turn to pre-pandemic levels. The highest value of presence of father during birth was recorded in March 2019 (59.0%; 95%CI 58.2-59.8), while the lowest in April 2020 (50.0%; 95%CI 49.1-50.8). The main emerging themes were: the existence of national, regional and local indications; the facilitators (e.g., Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative implementation, strong motivation of the staff) and the critical points (e.g., inadequate analysis of the clinicalepidemiological context, inhomogeneous indications) of management of the support person presence.Conclusions: the emergency has changed the provision of health services that not always guaranteed the applicationof best practices. It would be desirable to work for assessing the appropriateness of the birth certificate data to collect more accurate information and to provide clinical recommendations