Giuseppe Masullo

Characterization and burden of Campania children health migration across Italian regions during years 2006–2010: chance and/or necessity?

BackgroundTo evaluate medical, economical and sociological variables underlying avoidable pediatric migration from Campania region.MethodsAnalysis of years 2006–2010 hospital discharge records, extracted from the archive of Regional Health Agency (ArSan), classified by Major Diagnostic Categories, Aggregate Clinical Codes, Discipline of dismissal, Local Health Authorities of residence, and age group 0–14 years (excluding those of healthy newborns). Sociological variables were evaluated by questionnaires.ResultsA total of 68,316 hospital discharge records were released by extra-regional structures. Major diagnostic categories and Discipline of dismissal indicated that the most implicated diseases (nervous system and mental disorders, hematology-oncology, and bone diseases) were not always of very high complexity. The total cost paid by the Campania Region was 124.700.000 Euros. The need for more specialized hospital pediatric units and/or with more pediatric subspecialties in the native region was pointed out by most of the self-administered questionnaires.ConclusionsPediatric migration is an important phenomenon with evident implications. The identification of the most concerned sub-specialties here reported can give useful information aiming to assist in the improvement of the existing pediatric resources in Campania region in the wider context of the national global child health advancement.

Education towards differences. Preventing gender and sex discriminations in subjects in the age of development

The present contribution addresses the issue of preventing and combating gender and sex discrimination in subjects in the age of development and, specifically, children. In our society, characterized by an ideological sexist, genderist and heterocentric matrix, identities that cannot placed within the socially constructed and accepted stereotypes of normality are – often – victims of abuses and they are denied equal treatment. In order to raise awareness of the need to respect personal and social differences, more and more initiatives are being created aimed at promoting a non-discriminatory attitude towards gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-conforming and queer people. Among such initiatives, the construction and narration of stories for children explaining the concepts inherent in the culture of differences, are a valid tool for fostering a climate and a cultural structure free of gender and sex stigmatization and instead aiming at enhancing “difference†, considering it a positive possibility just like socially-accepted states. The essay, after a brief description of the characteristics of language, attitudes and relationship with reality in subjects in the age of development, examines the methodological and ethical approach to be used with children, so as to allow them to understand the possibility of different forms of identity and otherness. Preventing and countering prejudices arising from beliefs and social models that help in reproducing every day, in civil society, discriminations, harassment, and unequal treatment against many people, represents a mission to create and reproduce an inclusive and democratic society.

Mobilità sanitaria pediatrica in Regione Campania: uno studio interdisciplinare

Through an interdisciplinary approach, the following pages will analyse first those structural factors crucially influencing the decision to contact a health service outside one’s residence region in order to solve one’s health conditions. We will see that many of these choices are attributable to differences – both real and perceived – in the supply of regional health services, partly as a result of some important reforms that occurred in recent decades in the National Health System. We will next discuss the phenomenon more in detail, referring particularly to the pediatric health mobility from health services within the Campania Region to those of other regions, reconstructed through both the analysis of hospital discharge records (in Italian SDO) and the testimonies of pediatricians in some regional provinces.