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. 2024 Dec 5;50(1):258.
doi: 10.1186/s13052-024-01825-4.

A child opportunity index in Italy: a pilot proposal

Pietro Ferrara  1   2 , Domenico Cipolla  3 , Giovanni Corsello  4 , Luca M Lagalla  3 , Matilde Tantillo  3 , Giusyelisa Galione  3 , Chiara Martorana  4 , Teresa Mazzone  5 , Margherita Zona  6 , Ignazio Cammisa  6
Affiliations

A child opportunity index in Italy: a pilot proposal

Pietro Ferrara et al. Ital J Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: The Child Opportunity Index (COI) is a new and innovative tool designed to assess the environment in which children grow up, offering a broad evaluation of the opportunities available to them in different neighborhoods. This initiative aims to ensure improvements in children's living conditions and future health outcomes.

Methods: The study was performed in the cities of Palermo and Rome. Our Italian COI consists of three main domains: education, health and environment, and economy, each subdivided into specific indicators. We collected information, when available, useful for our indicators from institutional sites and municipal archives. Furthermore, in the city of Rome, we distributed a questionnaire through local pediatricians, collecting data in 2 randomly chosen neighborhoods with questions on children's health and quality of life, proposing an initial approach that, when implemented using data provided by the government and public and private health institutions, aims to evaluate the correlation between socio-economic opportunities and the psycho-physical health of children, as demonstrated in the literature.

Results: As a result, many aspects, such as the rate of air pollution or the illegal occupation of houses, were not taken into consideration. We therefore consider our COI proposal only a starting model that will have to be implemented once all the necessary information has been obtained. However, what can be deduced from this first descriptive study is how the opportunities in different neighborhoods are not the same for all children. The number of educational opportunities as well as the number of environmental opportunities differs between the various districts and is not homogeneous between different cities or within the same city.

Conclusions: In conclusion, it is not simple to analyze in a scientific manner the child's health impact of living in different areas. The COI could be a useful and simple tool that can give us this information. Pediatricians could collaborate with institutions to implement intervention plans and to reduce existing differences, social and health inequalities. Future studies will have to implement this pilot study to create and validate an Italian model of COI to be used as a useful tool in children's assistance.

Keywords: Child opportunity index; Children; Health; Neighborhoods.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved by the Mother and Child Department of the University of Palermo (Palermo, Italy) and by the Operative Research Unit of Pediatrics, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico (Roma, Italy). All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Consent of publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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