[The last twenty years of hygiene in research and teaching]

An analysis of the research topics in the last twenty years made it clear that Italian research in the field of hygiene and public health has moved from the traditional fields of infectious diseases and environmental pollution to include also chronic diseases, organization and evaluation of health services, genomics in epidemiology, health technology assessment and health impact evaluation. In the same period, teaching of hygiene and public health has been profoundly innovated. Degrees for non-medical health operators, many of whom strictly connected with the field of public health such as nurses, health visitors, public health laboratory technicians, are now granted by medical schools; the MD degree has also been innovated with strong addition of humanities and preventive disciplines; and the post-graduate School of Preventive Medicine has been brought to 5 years, transformed into a fully professional specialization and regulated by requisites and standards granted by both Ministries of University and Health and surveilled by National and Regional Control Bodies. Beginning 1999, a strong age renovation took place for hygiene professors, with the advancement of many young people. But this process has been interrupted after 2007, and the economic crisis now under way, together with the recent modification of the age limits for retirement of professors, now reduced from 75 to 70 years, will probably bring their number below a safety limit for many years to come. Only a revision of teaching procedures will allow the "survivors" to respond to the teaching needs of the future.