76 research outputs found
From Theory to Implementation of the Best Policy Instrument toProtect Human Health: a Brief Overview
Is caring for elderly parents detrimental for women’s mental health? The influence of the European North-South gradient
Well-Being and psychological consequences of temporary contracts : the case of younger Italian employees
Working conditions in Western countries have changed dramatically in the last twenty years, witnessing the emergence of new forms of employment contracts. The number of "standard" fulltime permanent jobs has decreased, while non-standard work arrangements such as temporary, contingent or part-time contracts have become much more common. This paper analyses the impact of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees. We use the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and Wealth (SHIW). We consider four dimensions of individual well-being: physical health, mental health, self-assessed health and happiness. To account for individual heterogeneity we match each temporary worker with a permanent worker using propensity score matching. Well-being of matched individuals is compared to estimates of the average effect of working with a temporary as opposed to a permanent contract. Our analysis reveals a negative relationship between psychological well-being, happiness and having a temporary job and is particularly marked for male
Well-being and psychological consequences of temporary contracts: the case of younger Italian employees
Working conditions in Western countries have changed dramatically in the last twenty years,
witnessing the emergence of new forms of employment contracts. The number of "standard" fulltime
permanent jobs has decreased, while non-standard work arrangements such as temporary,
contingent or part-time contracts have become much more common. This paper analyses the impact
of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees. We use
the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National
Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and
Wealth (SHIW). We consider four dimensions of individual well-being: physical health, mental
health, self-assessed health and happiness. To account for individual heterogeneity we match each
temporary worker with a permanent worker using propensity score matching. Well-being of
matched individuals is compared to estimates of the average effect of working with a temporary as
opposed to a permanent contract. Our analysis reveals a negative relationship between
psychological well-being, happiness and having a temporary job and is particularly marked for males
Formalin Fixation at Low Temperature Better Preserves Nucleic Acid Integrity
Fixation with formalin, a widely adopted procedure to preserve tissue samples, leads to extensive degradation of nucleic acids and thereby compromises procedures like microarray-based gene expression profiling. We hypothesized that RNA fragmentation is caused by activation of RNAses during the interval between formalin penetration and tissue fixation. To prevent RNAse activation, a series of tissue samples were kept under-vacuum at 4°C until fixation and then fixed at 4°C, for 24 hours, in formalin followed by 4 hours in ethanol 95%. This cold-fixation (CF) procedure preserved DNA and RNA, so that RNA segments up to 660 bp were efficiently amplified. Histological and immunohistochemical features were fully comparable with those of standard fixation. Microarray-based gene expression profiles were comparable with those obtained on matched frozen samples for probes hybridizing within 700 bases from the reverse transcription start site. In conclusion, CF preserves tissues and nucleic acids, enabling reliable gene expression profiling of fixed tissues
Larger is Better: The Scale Effects of the Italian Local Healthcare Authorities Amalgamation Program
Consolidation is often considered as a means to lower service delivery costs and enhance accountability. This paper uses a prospective evaluation design to derive estimates of the potential cost savings that may arise from Local Healthcare Authorities (LHAs) amalgamation process, which is concerning the Itali an National Health System. We focus specifically on cost savings due to scale economies with reference to a particular subset of the production costs of the LHAs, i.e. the administrative costs together with the purchasing costs of both goods as well as non-healthcare related services. Our results demonstrate the existence of economies of scale linked to the size of the LHA population. Hence, the decision to reduce the number of LHAs may result in larger local health authorities that are more cost efficient, especially when the consolidation process concerns merging a large number of LHA
Delegating Home Care for the Elderly to External Caregivers? An Empirical Study on Italian Data
- …