"Alimentinsalute": A social marketing project for public health communication and education on food safety and nutrition in Veneto Region

A new approach to define education tools for public health communication was set up by the Veneto Region since 2008, in collaboration with the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, in order to implement a network of expertise and knowledge that could be useful for the citizens. Actions were planned in order to increase people’s knowledge – adults and school-aged children – of food risks and nutritional aspects of products, to promote correct food practices, and to encourage healthy lifestyle, through effective messages to consumers. Training programmes and information interventions in which safety food and nutrition topics were aptly illustrated also with practical labs, were performed by public health operators and nutritionists, for adult consumers by means of public seminars held in all the Provinces of the Veneto Region, More than 40,000 people participated to almost 400 seminars. Primary and middle schools were involved in didactic laboratories and asked to make video on food safety and nutrition. Laboratories were conducted by educational staff form Education Sciences Department of University of Padua . In two years more than 40 schools and 2,000 students joined the project (Sportello Cibo Intelligente). Finally, a website http://www.alimentinsalute.it was created for the complete availability of the information and to gather all the experiences. This website was intended as a meeting place for consumers to interact to each other, as well as a trust-building place to strengthen the public health information policies for consumers. Actions and training programmes made participants either more aware of food safety and more responsive to alimentary behaviours, through an enduring strategy tailored to the consumer and his needs.