Health

  
Alessandro Lesma - Head of Corporate Health

The promotion of health is one of the areas in which Eni is ahead of the pack. Can you explain Eni's strategy in this area?
The promotion of health is a primary commitment for which the company has selected to valorise its resources. For this reason, for many years now, a program of Health Promotion has been in operation that is focused principally on the concept of prevention.
By Health Promotion we don't just mean the diagnosis and cure of professional illnesses which, thanks to the preventative measures put in place by our health surveillance structure and the rigorous application of existing norms, have diminished substantially. Today the primary aim of the health management system at Eni is prevention. The company doctor deals every day with a range of chronic pathologies that are not directly related to work but are uniformly distributed through the population: cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, tumours, etc. In fact, at every company, there is an increase in the incidence of such illnesses. A consequence of inappropriate behaviours (such as poor diet and smoking) and the continuous stresses of everyday life. The challenge facing Health Promotion is the primary and secondary prevention of these pathologies.
Primary prevention involves the elimination of the risk factors that contribute to the main illnesses and can be achieved by promoting more appropriate life styles, such as: physical activity, a healthy diet, moderate consumption of alcohol and not smoking.
In fact, an appropriate lifestyle can reduce by 60% the risk of developing chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease, as well as cancers. At Eni prevention involves the promotion of training and information campaigns on the Health Promotion intranet site and the involvement of competent physicians. Also in the area of primary prevention, are the annual campaigns to fight against flu, online medicine, a Health Card, and a Health Manual for employees who travel and the First Aid Manual.
Secondary prevention, meanwhile, means the activation of projects aimed at the early diagnosis of disease. In recent years a number of targeted projects have involved numerous employees. Among the most important was the Early Diagnosis Program, conceived to discover cancers at the initial stage where they can be effectively treated.

Among the projects that Eni has developed in this area, which, in your opinion, have been the most important?
Certainly the Early Diagnosis Programme which aims at the permanent secondary prevention of the sort of cancers for which it has been proved that there is a real advantage in mass screening to ensure early diagnosis. Such screening, as recommended in the latest national health plan, are for cancers of the breast, uterus, colon-rectum and skin.
The program, which is available to all Eni employees around the country, is conducted in cooperation with the Italian Anti-Cancer League (Lega Italiana per la Lotta ai tumori - LILT) . Screenings for each type of cancer are carried out, free of charge and through preferential channels, at the facilities of the Institution and, where the League is not present, with local health facilities or the company's own structures that have been specially equipped, such as at Priolo in Sicily. Participation in the program is voluntary and regular internal promotional campaigns promote and encourage participation.
risk factors related to cardiovascular, metabolic and chronic illnesses among Eni employees and to activate a series of initiatives to reduce the impact on the most affected individuals, such as encouraging and facilitating physical activity and providing information on how to combine in the best way the food provided by company canteens.

  
The implementation of the health system management provides for carrying out assessment studies on the health profile of the country in question with an analysis of health risks, by means of:

• Health Risk assessment;
• Health Survey;
• Assessment of compliance with the Occupational Health & Medical Support Gap Analysis - OH&MS GA.

These methods constitute a basis for the development of local plans concerning occupational health, health support and emergencies management.
The complexity and variety of the contexts in which Eni operates and must adapt to, require a consolidation of the following actions:

• the promotion and dissemination of the knowledge and of the best practices as well as the implementation, in other countries, of training programs for medical and para-medical personnel;
• implementation, activation and maintenance of the OHSAS 18001 certification for the management systems in place;
• definition of standards applied to occupational medicine and industrial hygiene and aimed at assessing and controlling  health risks to which workers are exposed, as well as improving the review and control system through the definition of performance indicators.

  
The commitment towards of health promotion within the Company has consistently increased in the last few years and 2009 was characterised not only by numerous programs aimed at promoting  the health and well-being of Eni’s employees, but also by a remarkable success of all the ongoing initiatives.

As a confirmation of its commitment, in 2009 Eni joined, together with other 24 European companies, the “Enterprise for health‘, an a European network for the development of health promotion-related projects.

The main lines of actions were:

• free secondary prevention campaigns;
• training campaigns on healthy lifestyle;
• incentives to the participation in initiatives towards the individual well-being.

In 2009, the overall expenditure for these initiatives, not imposed by the law, amounted to roughly 2 million Euros. In particular, the “Eni in forma‘ project was completed through training and information sessions targeted at promoting an healthy lifestyle with employees.

In 2010, the Trainer on line project will be developed. Useful advice on well-being and healthy nutrition will be available on the Health Promotion intranet website.