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Objectives: Following an earthquake that occurred in middle Italy in 2009, the involved territory hosted in 10 years thousands of construction sites. The aim of this study is to assess inhalable, respirable, and respirable crystalline silica exposure of the construction workers involved in the rebuilding activities., Methods: Six construction companies joined the study and hosted the air sampling activities. We identified four work tasks: bricklayer and similar; scaffolder and carpenter; manual demolition; other tasks. We reported 8-h time-weighted concentrations., Results: The "All tasks" geometric mean concentration of inhalable dust was 4.73 mg/m 3 and the higher, TLV exceeding exposure was observed for "Manual demolition workers" (13.92 mg/m 3 , GM). The "All tasks" geometric mean concentration of respirable dust was 0.25 mg/m 3 and no TLV-exceeding exposure (geometric mean values) was observed among the work-related groups. About the respirable crystalline silica dust exposure, the "All tasks" average concentration was 0.004 mg/m 3 . No TLV-exceeding exposure was observed among the whole data sample., Conclusions: The comparison of the results shows that manual demolition workers are exposed to high levels of inhalable dust, exceeding the TLV-TWA (Threshold Limit Values-Time Weighted Average) limit of 10 mg/m 3 . About the respirable dust concentration, none of the analyzed work task dust concentrations exceeded the TLV-TWA limit of 3 mg/m 3 (geometric mean values). Measurements of respirable crystalline silica dust have shown levels below the threshold limit value of 0.025 mg/m 3 . Our findings overall match with the available scientific data., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Occupational Health published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of The Japan Society for Occupational Health.)

The aim of this study was to investigate the injury patterns and the hospitalizations of patients who were admitted to hospital following the 2009 earthquake in the city of L'Aquila, Central Italy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the patterns of earthquake-related injuries in Italy. We reviewed the hospital discharge data of 171 patients admitted to hospital within the following 96 h from the mainshock. This is an observational and descriptive study: We controlled for variables such as patient demographics, primary and secondary ICD-9-CM (International Classification of Diseases) diagnosis codes in order to identify the multiple injured patients, main type of injury that resulted in the hospital admission, discharge disposition, and average length of stay (LOS). Seventy-three percent of the 171 patients were admitted to hospital on the first day. Multiple injuries accounted for 52% of all trauma admissions, with a female to male ratio of 63% versus 37%. The most common type of injuries involved bone fractures (46.8%), while lower extremities were the most frequently affected sites (38.75%). The average LOS was 12.11 days. This study allows the evaluation of the impact of earthquake-related injuries in relation both to the health needs of the victims and to the use of the health care resources and assistance.