Board of Directors of the Italian Postgraduate Schools of Hygiene and Public Health

Current global health threats cannot be tackled solely with individual therapeutic acts. Medical doctors specialists in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine ? and, more in general, Public Health professionals - address health issues from a population perspective: planning, implementing and evaluating interventions to reduce risk factors and the social burden of diseases. With these assumptions, Italian specialists in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine apply their skills to become Health Directors of public and private hospitals (Direttori sanitari), to work in the Departments of Prevention and Districts of Local Health Authorities (Aziende USL), with particular reference to epidemiological methods, health promotion, health organization, policy and management, and health communication. With this cultural background, Hygiene and Preventive Medicine specialists might also aim to pursue careers in universities, research centers, pharmaceutical companies, international governmental and non-governmental health organizations. It is therefore no coincidence that, currently, in Italy 39% of Health Managers are physicians specialists in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine and that the current President of the National Health Institute, the President of the Superior Council of Health and the Italian Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health have the same cultural Public Health background.

The Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health (SItI) - which brings together over 3000 members of this discipline, including a very active network of residents - has gathered on its website specific information* on the 35 Post-graduate Schools of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine currently active, where over 200 residents are enrolled every year, of which, according to the latest data, almost 100% are employed within one year from their final Diploma.