The promotion of the health and well-being of women and children is part of the intersectoral policies and actions recommended by many international agencies. In line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, the WHO Global Strategy for the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents, the WHO Europe Minsk Declaration and the WHO, Unicef and Bank's Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development document Worldwide, the IIstituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, the National Institute of Health in Italy), in tune with the Ministry of Health, actively promotes the quality of assistance for the birth path and in the first 1000 days of life.
In addition, in collaboration with other national and international research institutes, the ISS produces scientific evidence to support public health policies for the promotion of the health of women, children and adolescents. Thanks to the basic and applied research activity and the coordination of multiple surveillance systems, the ISS studies the biomedical, psychosocial and economic-cultural aspects that can have repercussions on the health and well-being of women and children. It also performs a role of national observatory to offer decision-makers, health professionals and citizens useful knowledge for the promotion and evaluation of life-course interventions, and to improve the quality of assistance to sexual and reproductive health of women and couples and to promote styles of healthy life among children and adolescents.
The multiple thematic areas subject to research and surveillance include sexual and reproductive health; maternal, perinatal and infantile morbidity and mortality; perinatal mental health; malformations; health determinants in childhood and adolescence and pathologies.
