Local health rules and building regulations: a survey on local hygiene and building regulations in Italian municipalities

Abstract

Introduction: WHO highlighted the need to strengthen the relationship between health and built environment; in particular, environmental factors and inadequate housing conditions are the most harmful risk factors for NCDs. Local Health Rules (LHRs) and Building Codes (BCs) are useful tools to provide safety and hygiene in building construction. The paper presents a survey on the adoption and updating of LHRs and BCs in Italian municipalities. Methodology: The survey analyses the state-of-the-art of LHRs, BCs and Municipal Development Plans (MDPs) on a sample of 553 cities, with different demographic and geographic characteristics from each other. Results: the survey highlights the serious shortage of updated LHRs, especially in small and medium municipalities. Instead, BCs and MDPs are much more current and updated, but only 30% of them are previously validated by Local Health Authorities. Conclusion: According to the analysis, it is necessary to introduce ever more performance guidelines, instead of prescriptive rules. The Government is taking steps to give rise to a National Building Code guidelines and this initiative could also be expanded to invest LHRs’ issues.