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A Met Office Hadley Centre regional climate model, HadRM3P, is used to dynamically downscale the NOAA Twentieth Century Reanalysis, version 2c (20CRv2c), to generate a fine-resolution reconstruction of China’s climate from 1851 to 2010. The downscaled dataset has a small warm and seasonal wet bias (1.4°C; 0.9 mm day−1) relative to recent observations but otherwise represents spatial and temporal trends realistically. Analysis focused on temperature and precipitation shows that downscaling 20CRv2c is found to improve its representation of China’s climatological annual cycle, particularly over areas with sparse observational coverage such as the Tibetan Plateau. The downscaled dataset better represents the interannual variability and trends in observed temperature since 1901 and suggests that China has experienced a significant and sustained increase in temperature of 0.05°C (10 yr)−1since the 1850s. Chinese precipitation trends have not changed significantly in the recent past or over the past 160 years. This analysis serves as an initial yet imperative step toward improving in-depth understanding of the characteristics and multidecadal drivers of high-impact events over China such as heat waves, droughts, and extreme precipitation.

The population over 64 years of age is the main user of acute hospital care services. The elderly admission rates represent a marker for the appropriateness of the model of care. The aim of this study was to assess trends and determinants of acute in-patient care among the elderly in Italy between 2001 and 2011.Retrospective analysis of data included in the Italian Hospital Discharge Form Database.Data from the Italian Hospital Discharge Form Database, Italian Ministry of Health, for the years 2001, 2006 and 2011 were analyzed for individuals over 64 years of age. Inpatient admission (1 day) rates across Italian Regions were calculated and compared with demographic variables and out-of-hospital care indicators. Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to determine independent relationship among variables.From 2001 to 2011 the elderly hospital admission rate decreased from 302.1/1,000 in 2001, to 222.4 in 2011, accounting for an overall decrease of about 28%. The decline in admission rates was less pronounced among individuals74 y (26.4%) than among those 65-74 y (32.1%). Hospitalization rates decreased in all Italian administrative regions between 2001 and 2011, even if the hospitalization rates in 2011 were still very different through the different Italian regions, ranging from 180.3/1,000 in Piedmont to 278.1/1,000 in Molise for people64 y. The multivariate linear regression was statistically significant in explaining the variations in hospitalization rates among the different Italian administrative regions (F: 3.637; p = 0.024; adjusted R2 = 0.57) and pointed to the role played by the proportion of the elderly (as percentage of the total population, p=0.043) and the rate of variation of acute care beds from 2004 to 2011 (p=0.001). Variables related to community-based care did not show any association with the hospital admissions rate among the elderly.The trend toward decline in elderly inpatient admissions is still present in 2011 as it was in 2001. Determinants of elderly hospital care in Italy are related to the increased number of elderly individuals and the reduction of hospital beds. Out-of-hospital care does not correlate with the variation of in-patient care so the overall care appropriateness could be negatively affected.

Currently children of immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the Italian population under the age of 18. The present study reports the challenges to health services access, the vaccination coverage, the health and nutritional status of a sample of 1310 children of immigrants attended from February 2004 to May 2012 the health center "Medicina Solidale" of the "Policlinico Tor Vergata" in the suburban area of the VIII Municipality of Rome.The data were collected using clinical archives of the health center. We analyzed the socio-demographic conditions, health problems and nutritional status on admission to the health center. The anthropometric evaluation was carried out according to international standards of child growth WHO 2006 and the statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 19, and including risk estimation, Mantel Haentzel statistics and t-test.Sixty-six percent of the children were born in Italy, 62% had never had regular health care and 3.4% of children older than six months had never received any of the immunizations. It has been estimated that being Roma the risk of not been vaccinated is equal to OR=5.4 (IC95%: 2.8-10.1). Seventy-seven percent of unvaccinated children had at least one illiterate parent. This condition was strongly associated with non-immunization (OR=15:36 [IC95%: 6.4-36.4]). Growth retardation was common in Roma children as compared to other ethnicities.Significant public health efforts are needed to improve access to health services for immigrant populations and to solve relevant inequalities.

The ab initio potential energy surface (PES) already computed for the title system is employed here to study the behaviour of the collisional energy transfer processes over a broad range of energies. The quantum evaluation of rotationally and vibrationally inelastic partial integral cross sections is carried out under different angular momentum coupling conditions and the results are closely analysed in terms of the specific features of the coupling PES. State-to-state rate constants for excitation and relaxation processes are obtained in a broad range of temperatures and the overall efficiency of the collisional energy transfer is analysed. The cooperative effect between the rotational anisotropy and the vibrational excitations is clearly shown and discussed.

The full potential energy surface (PES) for the collinear Ar4 + cluster as a function of the three internuclear distances is computed at the post-Hartree-Fock level using Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods to treat dynamic correlation effects. The behaviour of the overall configuration energy minima as the central Ar2 + bond stretches is analysed as a function of the fragmentation coordinates of the wing atoms. The coupling between the stretching coordinate and the fragmentation coordinates is also analysed over the whole PES. The calculations suggest that large vibrational energy content in the core dimer ion causes localization of the coupling with either wing atoms which could in turn favour energetically the sequential fragmentation, while Ar4 + with a vibrationally cold core markedly lowers any energy barrier to fragment in a concerted fashion. Such suggestions provide further useful information for what has been found in some of the experimental studies on this ionic system (and on larger ionized argon clusters) and underline the possible role which the internal vibrational energy content of the ionic cluster can play in the fragmentation. © Springer-Verlag 1997.

The existence of an He2 bound state is employed in an analysis of the possible outcomes from the low-energy collisions between helium dimers and xenon atoms that are currently being observed in molecular beam experiments. Existing interaction potentials between helium atoms and between He and Xe atoms are used to construct the necessary potential energy surface (PES). Various dynamical approximations for the evaluation of elastic and total cross sections are reviewed, and the results are analyzed in detail, helping us to clarify the specific physical meanings of the various decoupling schemes used in the calculations. The special nature of this unusual diatomic target turns out to play, as expected, a crucial role in the cross section behavior at low collision energies.

The three-dimensional potential energy surface of the ground electronic state of the Ar3 + cluster is computed within a density functional framework and employed in a dynamical study of the vibrational predissociation channel as a possible fragmentation pathway for the complex. A remarkable tendency for the vibrational predissociation process to slow down as J increases from 0 to 2 is clearly shown by our calculations, in agreement with previous studies that stressed the role played by the overall rotational temperature of the various clusters in causing an unusually large range of lifetimes in such resonant break-up processes. © 1995., This work has been partly supported by the DGI- CYT (Spain) under contract PB92-53.

A fully anisotropic potential energy surface (PES) is constructed for the ground electronic state of the (Ar)4+ system in order to analyse the interaction of the Ar3+ core with a residual argon atom. Using the highly anisotropic PES found in this case, we carry out a detailed analysis of the consequences of energy storing in the rotational degrees of freedom of the core on the quantum fragmentation of the full system. We find that such process provides a highly efficient break-up channel until the overall rotational temperature of the cluster manages to block the lower levels of metastability into slow-decaying states of the full cluster. The effect of such findings on the general modelling of cluster metastability is also analysed and discussed.

DREAM (Drug Resources Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition) is a multiregional health program active in Mozambique since 2002 and provides free of charge an integrating package of care consisting of peer to peer nutritional and health education, food supplementation, voluntary counseling and testing, immunological, virological, clinical assessment and HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Treatment). The main goals of this paper are to describe the state of health and nutrition and the adequacy of the diet of a sample of HIV/AIDS patients in Mozambique on HAART and not. A single-arm retrospective cohort study was conducted. 106 HIV/AIDS adult patients (84 in HAART), all receiving food supplementation and peer-to-peer nutritional education, were randomly recruited in Mozambique in two public health centres where DREAM is running. The programme is characterized by: provision of HAART, clinical and laboratory monitoring, peer to peer health and nutritional education and food supplementation. We measured BMI, haemoglobin, viral load, CD4 count at baseline (T0) and after at least 1 year (T1). Dietary intake was estimated using 24h food recall and dietary diversity was assessed by using the Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) at T1. Overall, the patients'diet appeared to be quite balanced in nutrients. In the cohort not in HAART the mean BMI values showed an increases but not significant (initial value: 21.9 ± 2.9; final value: 22.5 ± 3.3 ) and the mean haemoglobin values (g/dl) showed a significant increases (initial value: 10.5+ 2.1; final value: 11.5 ± 1.7 p0.024) . In the cohort in HAART, both the mean of BMI value (initial value: 20.7 ± 3.9; final value: 21.9 ± 3.3 p0.001) and of haemoglobin (initial value: 9.9 ± 2.2; final value: 10.8 ± 1.7 p0.001) showed a higher significant increase. The increase in BMI was statistically associated with the DDS in HAART patients. In conclusion nutritional status improvement was observed in both cohorts. The improvement in BMI was significant and substantially higher in HAART patients because of the impact of HAART on nutritional status of AIDS patients. Subjects on HAART and with a DDS5, showed a substantial BMI gain. This association showed an additional expression of the synergic effect of integrating food supplementation, nutritional education and HAART on the nutritional status of African AIDS patients and also highlights the complementary role of an adequate and diversified diet in persons living with HIV/AIDS in resources limited settings.

Earlier experimental data by Friedrich et al. found out, from time-of-flight experiments of collisions between H+ and HF molecules, that most of the available relative energy becomes transferred into internal rotations of the target and that vibrational excitation only begins to be noticeable around and above 30 eV of relative collision energy. The present theoretical and computational model starts from the potential energy function presented in the preceding paper and carries out quantum calculations that explicitly include the coupling of vibrational target states. The results indeed show very few vibrational excitations and rather large rotational energy transfers as the collision energy is increased up to 50 eV. Microscopic features of both the interaction and the dynamics are found to be responsible for such behavior, which brings the present calculations in agreement with experimental findings. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The various structures and geometries of the cation FH (fluoronium ion) have been investigated over a broad range of relative orientations between the proton and the HF molecule using ab initio, correlated wave functions and focusing on the lowest-energy channel that can lead to the production of vibrationally excited HF in the collisions with near-thermal H+ atoms. Various quality controls have been carried out on the accuracy of the target molecule description and a reliable, overall structure of the vibrational–rotational potential energy surface is obtained, for the first time extensively enough, to carry out scattering calculations in the direct excitation channels for the rotovibrational modes. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Kaposi Sarcoma shows several different clinical and epidemiological patterns. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where the HIV achieves an high prevalence of infection, the KS can be found both in HIV positive than in HIV negative patients, and the diffusion of the HHV8 virus is endemic. The aim of the work is to evaluate the HHV8 seroprevalence in Mozambique. Moreover the relationship of some main indicators, as CD4 and CD8 cells count, HIV viral load, Body Mass Index and haemoglobin values have been calculated in a part of the DREAM Cohort, (HIV positive patients enrolled in the Community of Sant'Egidio program to fight AIDS in the Sub-Saharan Africa). In the HIV positive cohort HHV8 negative and HHV8 positive groups show statistical significance (p0.05) in CD4 cells count, a strong significance (p = 0.01) in CD8 cells count and a significance also in Haemoglobin levels (p = 0.35). The difference in Haemoglobin levels (0.5 g/dl) is related more to a statistical than a clinical significance. The study confirms the free circulation of the HHV8 virus in the Mozambican population, with a prevalence rate of 51.1%, similar than that measured in bordering countries. Considering the CD8 value within the HIV positive sub-cohort a strong correlation with the positivity for HHV8 and the immunological status is suggested.

Albania is a Balkan country in South-Eastern Europe which, in recent years, has undergone complex demographic, political and economical changes. A notable drop in infant and maternal mortality rates and a significant rise in economic indicators have been observed in recent years. Despite this, over 15% of the population living in the northern and north-eastern areas of the country lives in extreme poverty conditions. In recent years various healthcare system reforms have been introduced, including the introduction of private healthcare and improvement of the main hospital infrastructures but not much has been done to increase the provision of essential healthcare services especially in rural and poor areas. Inequalities in health care are therefore widespread and these particularly affect children living in critical areas. In this paper we describe a paediatric healthcare intervention programme conducted in Albania from 2002 to 2004, aimed at improving the health and nutrition status of children and tackling healthcare system inequalities. The intervention consisted in offering free healthcare services and assistance, delivered through the Albanian healthcare system, to 5280 children. It also involved a health education programme for the mothers. The impact of the programme on the prevalence of infant malnutrition was evaluated by examining the medical records of 1745 infants followed for at least 6 months. Prevalence of malnutrition significantly decreased, from 13.4% to 4.2% during the study period. Mortality in children aged 0-5 years also showed a considerable drop. These results confirm that an efficient and sustainable model of paediatric healthcare assistance in Albania is possible.

To test the impact of a public health model to implement HIV pediatric care in Limited Resource Settings.A retrospective study on the clinical files of 679 Mozambican children (mean age 4.4 years; SD 3.2), has been carried out. The pediatric patients received HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy) in the framework of DREAM, a nationwide public health program offering an integrated model of care to HIV patients including free-of-charge HAART and monitoring, nutritional assessment and supplementation, peer-to-peer education, active tracing of the dropped out patients.HAART was started in 297 subjects out of 679. The median time of treatment was 286 (IQ 25-75:125-465). Mortality rate was lower in the sub-sample receiving HAART (8.4%; CI 95%: 5.2-11.6 vs 13.1%; CI 95%: 9.7-16.5). After 6 months of treatment the percentage of viral load lower than 400 copies/mL rose from 4.9% to 46.3%. The percentage of patients with less than 15% of CD4 cells out of the total lymphocyte count and the percentage of patients below the 2 z-score decreased from 56.4% and 58.1% to 8.8% and 38.1% respectively.Pediatric HAART in limited resource settings often face difficulties to handle complex treatment schemes, but the implemented model seems to be an effective tool to reduce mortality rate in HIV positive pediatric population.

Iron deficiency is the most prevalent nutritional problem of humans. In northern Albania, nutritional deficiencies are widespread among children but there is a lack of biochemical data. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence rate of the iron deficiency anemia in a sample of northern Albanian children. A group of 112 children aged 6-60 months, recruited during the routine vaccinations, was enrolled in a cross-sectional health examination survey that included venou blood measurements of iron status. The survey was conducted during 2000 in Lezha District. The mean age was 17.1 +/- 10 months, the majority of the children were living in rural areas (61%), 47.8% were female. The mean level of hemoglobin was lower than the reference value (10.3 +/- 1.1). Iron deficiency Anemia occurred in 47 children (47%) and more likely during the first year of the life (51%). Fifty seven children were fed with whole cow's milk, among them 44 were IDA. The risk value to be anemic or iron deficient for infants aged 6 to 12 months that were fed with whole cow's milk before the fourth months of life was high (OR = 6.2 (C.L.1.0-38)). In conclusion, the high prevalence of IDA and the relationship with early feeding of whole cow's milk suggest to consider iron deficiency in infancy and childhood in Albania as an important nutritional public health problem and to implement strategies for his detection, treatment and prevention.

To develop a realistic model of the situation, a study was carried out in four different socioeconomic and hygienic areas of Tirane, namely in the modern and historical centre as well as in the intermediate and peripheral areas. In each area interviewers from the city's Public Health Directorate, contacted randomly, door-to-door, the residents, submitting a questionnaire and collecting water samples at the same time. Our data show relevant differences regarding distribution and quality of drinking water between the centre and peripheral areas. One third of water samples revealed the presence of microorganisms, whereas one fifth had no residual chlorine. Altogether more than 200,000 people in the peripheral areas of Tirane live under low level hygienic conditions. The recent outbreaks of cholera, poliomyelitis and the hyperendemic hepatitis A disease are the dramatic results of the low quality drinking water.

In order to assess child malnutrition, an anthropometric cross-sectional survey of children aged 0-36 months was conducted in selected rural, urban and mountainous areas of Northern Albania in May 1997. The results showed a high prevalence of low anthropometric indices in rural and mountainous areas with a trend of similar magnitude in northern rural areas. In Northern Albania child malnutrition is a public health priority. As the main risk factor for underweight we found a recent history of diarrhoea (OR = 2.45) together with female gender (OR = 2.28), rural (OR = 2.09) or mountain (OR = 1.61) residency. Absence of sanitation, marker of poor housing conditions, also showed a significant association (OR = 1.55) with underweight. Low birthweight (OR = 1.12) was confirmed as an important risk factor for underweight condition. In conclusion these findings underline the importance of support appropriate mother and child health and nutritional programmes in rural areas of Northern Albania.

The vibrational predissociation is investigated as a possible pathway of fragmentation for the Ar+ 3 cluster in its ground electronic state. The potential energy surface was computed before, using density functional methods, and includes all the relevant nuclear degrees of freedom. Around the energies of variationally calculated zero-order metastable levels, close-coupling equations describing dissociative continuum states were solved. The overlap between quasi-discrete and continuum wavefunctions allows, according to Fano's theory, a precise estimate of resonance energies and associated lifetimes. A dynamical approximation which diabatically select one specific vibrational level of the dimer core along the process and further makes use of the Fermi Golden Rule, the DGR approximation, is also employed. In this way, the effects on fragmentation times of vibrational excitation of the dimer ionic core and of the overall rotational temperature are investigated. We find that the averaged lifetimes of the metastable states obtained over a broad energy range decrease as the vibrational content of the core goes up. Furthermore, the calculations also confirm the tendency of the lifetimes to increase with the total angular momentum of the cluster, as surmised by the earlier experiments and calculations discussed in the main text. Both computational methods employed here confirm this tendency. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V., This work was partially supported by DGICYT grants PB92-53 and PB95-0071, by the Italian Na- tional Research Council (CNR) and by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MURST). One of us (M.P. de L.) acknowledges the support of the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia with the grant AP93-31260351

A full quantum study of the fragmentation dynamics for argon trimer ions is carried out using a previously computed potential energy surface (PES). The initial and final internal states which are being considered are the bending-stretching states of the trimer and the rotovibrational states of the residual dimer ion. The treatment employs the helicity decoupling approximation over a broad range of total angular momentum values (J) and analyses the final distribution of rotational-vibrational states as a function of the metastable states of the J values and of the >tumbling> (helicity) quantum number |Ω|. It is found that at least two different effects, one mainly dynamically related to the centrifugal barrier and another to the orientational nature of the coupling potential field, can be discerned to explain the fragmentation results. © 1997 American Institute of Physics., This work was partially supported by a DGICYT Grant No. PB92-53 and No. PB95-0071, by the Italian National Research Council ~CNR!, and by the Italian Ministery for University and Research ~MURST!. One of us ~M.P. de L.! acknowledges the support of the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia with Grant No. AP93-31260351.

The quantum study of the fragmentation dynamics of argon trimer ions has been carried out using two different ab-initio potential energy surfaces. Different computational methods have been employed and the effects of the total angular momentum of the system have been evaluated. It is found that the observed metastability can be explained with the lengthening of the lifetimes produced by the centrifugal barrier.

The efficiency of collisionally induced vibrational excitations of argon ionic dimer cores, seen as nucleation systems for ionic argon clusters in supersonic expansion processes, is examined by computing quantum mechanical excitation probabilities in collisional encounters with single argon atoms. The calculations find the presence of 'core-excited' Feshbach resonances at these energy regimes but also indicate that such effects are likely to play a marginal role in the formation of 'hot' nucleation cores, a result which bears some consequences on the microscopic modelling of the growth of ionic microclusters of argon., We thank the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MURST) for the Ðnancial support.

A sample of 861 Roman children, aged 7 to 14 years, was investigated in order to evaluate the association between some cardiovascular risk factors such as high systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure levels, body mass index (BMI), arm fat area (AFA) and a history of diabetes, stroke, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, hypertension and overweight in their parents. The sample investigated was subdivided into three subgroups, based on whether the children had just one parent, both parents or no parent with a positive history. For all the variables considered, the highest values were found in the group of children with a positive history for both parents and the lowest ones in children with a negative history for both parents. The analysis of significance, based on the mean values for the three groups, revealed statistically significant differences for SBP, DBP, BMI and AFA between the group of children with a positive history for both parents and that of children with a negative history for both parents. Significant differences also emerged for DBP, BMI and AFA between the mean values of children positive for one parent and those negative for both parents and for BMI and AFA between the means of children positive for one parent and those positive for both parents. The odds ratio of high systolic and/or diastolic BP, BMI and AFA levels was consistently higher in children with one or two parents with a positive history compared to children with both parents with a negative history, and even higher considering only children with both parents with a positive history vs children with both parents with a negative history.

In an investigation on hypertension risk factors, the entire school population was examined in Trecchina, a southern Italian village. The reported findings refer to those children examined together with at least one parent, for a total of 134 mother-child pairs and 128 father-child pairs. For these groups of children, fathers and mothers, systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, weight (W), height (H) and triceps skinfold (TS) were detected and body mass index (BMI) was calculated in order to evaluate the prevalence of high blood pressure (BP) values and if overweight. Of 19.3% children, 26.9% fathers and 15.8% mothers showed high BP values; 28.9% of children, 14.0% of fathers and 19.3% of mothers were overweight. In children, the analysis of correlations, after adjustment for height, showed a significant association between BP and W, BMI and TS. Using multiple regression analysis, with BP as the dependent variable, SBP was significantly associated with BMI and age in mother and fathers. For DBP the only variable entered in the model was BMI for mothers and fathers. When controlling for the children's age, H, W and BMI of children were significantly related to H, W and BMI of mothers and fathers. These results confirm that overweight and a parental history of obesity are predictive and possibly causal factors for essential hypertension.

Highly correlated calculations of the collinear, symmetric break-up of helium trimer ions are carried out using an MRD-CI expansion and over a broad range of fragment relative distances. The general features of the lower roots of Σg, Σu, Πg and Πu symmetries are analysed in relation to recent experimental findings and are found to provide an explanation for the observed behaviour of the experimental fragmentation peaks., Financial support of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the Italian Ministry for Research and Technology (MURST) is acknowledged. PDL-C thanks the EU for a COST visiting fellowship to the University of Rome under project No. D3-0005/94. Also FS thanks the EU for the award of a Fellowship (category 30) under Contract No. ERB-CHBG-CT 930346.

A dynamical model based on an effective potential is employed to describe metastability and the related time scales for evaporation processes in ionized Argon clusters (Ar)n +, with n from 6 up to 27. The effective interaction, and its dependence on the cluster size, is obtained by combining previous ab initio results and Monte Carlo simulations for the above systems with an assumed linear variation of the cluster volume with the n number of monomers. The overall metastability of the excited clusters is linked to the possible local rotational 'temperature' of such species and the distributions of the ensuing lifetimes are analysed as function of cluster size and of different nucleation mechanisms. It is found that an unusually large range of lifetime values is obtained from the present modelling, in general accord with earlier experiments, and that the existence of large rotational barriers can markedly delay the dissociation of metastable species. © 1995 Springer-Verlag., The finandal support of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and of the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) is also grate- fully acknowledged by both the collaborating groups.

In a previous study of fragmentation patterns of (Ar)3 + clusters [G. Delgado-Barrio, S. Miret-Artés, P. Villarreal, and F. A. Gianturco, Z. Phys. D 27, 354 (1993)] it was found that overall rotations control the lifetimes of the occupied metastable states of the cluster and that a spherical, effective interaction was sufficient to describe the dynamical process. In the present study, the strong anisotropy of a more realistic three-particle interaction is introduced and its effects on metastable decay are examined. By separating internal rotations from internal vibrations of the diatomic ion, it is possible to show that internal predissociation pathways are very efficient and lead to very short lifetimes. The latter can be lengthened only when overall rotational states are directly included, thus confirming the physical picture of the earlier work. © 1994 American Institute of Physics., The financial funding of the computing time by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) is also acknowledged.

Triceps, biceps, subscapular and supra-iliac skinfold measurements were taken on 871 children, aged 7-14, in three Roman schools. Girls have larger skinfolds than boys; the values at every site increase with age. Boys present an increase in skinfold measurements until 11 years, then a decrease, more marked at 14 years. Skinfold measurements are a method to assess the amount of fat in the body. Age reference curves, prepared from many Authors, in various parts of the world, show differences between different populations. Skinfold reference data for Italian population therefore are necessary.

In order to find out whether there is any relationship between blood pressure, body mass index, weight, heart rate in youth and arterial hypertension later on in life, 212 subjects (16-26 years of age) were re-examined 2 years later. Previous blood pressure level were very significantly associated with present blood pressure levels A relationship was also discovered with the other parameters measured 2 years earlier: weight, body mass index and heart rate. These findings confirm the fact that it is possible to detect future hypertensives early in life and to take effective preventive measures.