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Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study
BACKGROUND: Environmental health education contributes towards increasing awareness of communities to prevent exposure to hazardous substances. Casale Monferrato, the operating site for the Eternit asbestos-cement factory from 1907 to 1986, is a prioritized asbestos-contaminated site for remediation...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Ubiquity Press
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6634471/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31225962 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2491 |
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author | Marsili, Daniela Canepa, Adriana Mossone, Nicola Comba, Pietro |
author_facet | Marsili, Daniela Canepa, Adriana Mossone, Nicola Comba, Pietro |
author_sort | Marsili, Daniela |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Environmental health education contributes towards increasing awareness of communities to prevent exposure to hazardous substances. Casale Monferrato, the operating site for the Eternit asbestos-cement factory from 1907 to 1986, is a prioritized asbestos-contaminated site for remediation in Italy. The area is prone to severe asbestos-related diseases. About 50 cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in Casale Monferrato annually; mesothelioma has been shown to be caused by occupational, environmental and domestic asbestos exposure. OBJECTIVES: The goal of this paper is to analyze the Casale Monferrato case study in terms of youth engagement in environmental health education initiatives on asbestos risk and health impact. The paper aims at underlining the lessons learned in order to share the success of this initiative with other communities living in asbestos-contaminated sites in different countries. METHODS: Peer education methodology has been used through the Asbestos Classroom to involve teachers, students and other local stakeholders in training activities, in selection of the contents for educational materials and interactive tools, as well as in choosing the presentation process for the aforementioned knowledge sharing instruments. FINDINGS: From November 2014 to June 2018, 185 high school students and teachers were trained through the Asbestos Classroom. Through December 2018, they trained 3,241 classroom visitors. The Classroom relies on an inclusive participative process in which young people play a key role in the network of relationships within their community. CONCLUSIONS: The paper corroborates the importance of engaging the educational system in communication efforts aimed at fostering collective awareness on environmental risk and health-related impacts for communities living in industrially contaminated sites. Considering the global dimension of the asbestos contamination and disease burden, this experience might be of relevance both in countries that banned asbestos and in those where asbestos is not yet prohibited. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6634471 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Ubiquity Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66344712019-09-16 Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study Marsili, Daniela Canepa, Adriana Mossone, Nicola Comba, Pietro Ann Glob Health Original Research BACKGROUND: Environmental health education contributes towards increasing awareness of communities to prevent exposure to hazardous substances. Casale Monferrato, the operating site for the Eternit asbestos-cement factory from 1907 to 1986, is a prioritized asbestos-contaminated site for remediation in Italy. The area is prone to severe asbestos-related diseases. About 50 cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in Casale Monferrato annually; mesothelioma has been shown to be caused by occupational, environmental and domestic asbestos exposure. OBJECTIVES: The goal of this paper is to analyze the Casale Monferrato case study in terms of youth engagement in environmental health education initiatives on asbestos risk and health impact. The paper aims at underlining the lessons learned in order to share the success of this initiative with other communities living in asbestos-contaminated sites in different countries. METHODS: Peer education methodology has been used through the Asbestos Classroom to involve teachers, students and other local stakeholders in training activities, in selection of the contents for educational materials and interactive tools, as well as in choosing the presentation process for the aforementioned knowledge sharing instruments. FINDINGS: From November 2014 to June 2018, 185 high school students and teachers were trained through the Asbestos Classroom. Through December 2018, they trained 3,241 classroom visitors. The Classroom relies on an inclusive participative process in which young people play a key role in the network of relationships within their community. CONCLUSIONS: The paper corroborates the importance of engaging the educational system in communication efforts aimed at fostering collective awareness on environmental risk and health-related impacts for communities living in industrially contaminated sites. Considering the global dimension of the asbestos contamination and disease burden, this experience might be of relevance both in countries that banned asbestos and in those where asbestos is not yet prohibited. Ubiquity Press 2019-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6634471/ /pubmed/31225962 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2491 Text en Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Marsili, Daniela Canepa, Adriana Mossone, Nicola Comba, Pietro Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title | Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title_full | Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title_fullStr | Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title_short | Environmental Health Education for Asbestos-Contaminated Communities in Italy: The Casale Monferrato Case Study |
title_sort | environmental health education for asbestos-contaminated communities in italy: the casale monferrato case study |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6634471/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31225962 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2491 |
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