Giovanna Elisa Calabrò

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is continuously increasing, both in the adult and pediatric populations, posing a substantial challenge to public health. Understanding the epidemiological burden of metabolic syndrome (MetS) among children, particularly regarding its complications and long-term effects in adulthood, is crucial for identifying effective preventive measures and enhancing the clinical care of obese children. Therefore, by searching two databases, a systematic review was conducted in order to evaluate studies that specifically addressed the epidemiological MetS impact among overweight/obese European children and adolescents. Overall, 15 studies were considered. The epidemiological data concerning the MetS impact were contingent on the diagnostic criteria used and varied across countries, resulting in a prevalence range of 1.44% to 55.8%. Spanish studies were the most numerous (34%), revealing a country prevalence rate ranging from 2.5% to 19.6%. Males (prevalence range: 1.4–55.8%) and subjects with overweight/obesity (prevalence range: 12.9–55.8%) were mainly affected. Obesity emerged as the main risk factor in the MetS development and the consequent onset of cardiovascular complications and diabetes. Knowing the MetS burden and its risk factors could improve their prevention, detection, and treatment, and guide the development of targeted public health interventions to appropriately address the health needs of younger patients.

In line with how ethics has developed for the last three centuries, public health ethics has been widely dominated by a deontological as well as a utilitarian approach. The latter is a version of consequentialism, which states that maximizing utility is the primary goal of the majority of individuals or group action, while, on the other hand, virtue ethics, or at least the appeal to virtues, has been largely marginalized. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, we aim to highlight the political and ethical nature of public health interventions, often interpreted and presented as mere scientific enterprises. Secondly, we try to highlight the need to integrate or at least recognize the value of appeal to virtues in public health measures. The analysis will reference the Italian COVID-19 vaccination program as a case study. Initially, we will explore the political and ethical nature of any public health measure, using the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program in Italy as an example. Subsequently, we will illustrate the deontological approach to ethics, the utilitarian one, and the virtues one, focusing on the dynamic of the agent’s perspective. Lastly, we will briefly analyze both the Italian COVID-19 vaccination program and the communication campaign that promoted it.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been the most effective tool to prevent COVID-19, significantly reducing deaths and hospitalizations worldwide. Vaccination has played a huge role in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control, even as the inequitable distribution of vaccines still leaves several countries vulnerable. Therefore, organizing a mass vaccination campaign on a global scale is a priority to contain the virus spread. The aim of this systematic review was to assess whether COVID-19 vaccination campaigns are cost-effective with respect to no vaccination. A systematic literature search was conducted in the WHO COVID-19 Global literature database, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus from 2020 to 2022. Studies assessing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign cost-effectiveness over no vaccination were deemed eligible. The “Drummond’s checklist” was adopted for quality assessment. A synthesis of the studies was performed through the “dominance ranking matrix tool”. Overall, 10 studies were considered. COVID-19 vaccination was deemed cost-effective in each of them, and vaccination campaigns were found to be sustainable public health approaches to fight the health emergency. Providing economic evaluation data for mass vaccination is needed to support decision makers to make value-based and evidence-based decisions to ensure equitable access to vaccination and reduce the COVID-19 burden worldwide.