The Italian workplace-insurance institute INAIL, together with Italy’s regions, has published an updated version of the “Catalogo delle principali occasioni di esposizione professionale e non professionale ad amianto”: a reference work on the main situations in which people in Italy have been exposed to asbestos fibres, both at work and elsewhere. It was drawn up by INAIL’s Dimeila research department, together with the network of regional operational centres (Cor) of the national mesothelioma registry ReNaM (Registro nazionale dei mesoteliomi), which tracks the incidence of mesothelioma across Italy.
Updated catalogue and questionnaire
The catalogue updates the list of exposure situations and revises the questionnaire that the Cor centres use to question mesothelioma patients, or their family members, about how they were exposed to asbestos. Reconstructing this exposure history is crucial for epidemiological research and targeted prevention. Italy banned asbestos in 1992, but because of the long latency period of mesothelioma, sometimes several decades between exposure and diagnosis, new cases are still emerging that trace back to exposure from long before the ban.
More attention to less visible exposure
A key reason for the revision is that exposure sources, especially among women, are often less obvious and cannot always be traced back to traditional industrial settings such as factories or shipyards. Besides work history, the revised questionnaire therefore also covers residential history, family circumstances, living environment and lifestyle. According to INAIL, the share of mesotheliomas attributed to exposure in little-known economic sectors is expected to increase. The catalogue is intended for consultants and other experts, employers, healthcare providers and workers, and falls under INAIL’s themes of prevention and safety, and research and technological innovation.
Context
The data on health and regulation below does not come from the INAIL announcement but from additional sources. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies all six main forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, as carcinogenic to humans; exposure causes, among other things, mesothelioma and cancer of the lung, larynx and ovaries, as well as chronic lung conditions such as asbestosis. According to the WHO, more than 200,000 people worldwide die every year from asbestos-related diseases caused by exposure at work, as calculated in the joint WHO/ILO estimates for the period 2000-2016 (reference year 2016). Within the European Union, regulation has been tightened: Directive (EU) 2023/2668 of 22 November 2023, which amends Directive 2009/148/EC on the protection of workers from asbestos, lowers the occupational exposure limit for asbestos fibres. For readers outside Italy, the Italian example shows that an asbestos ban does not immediately end the health consequences: because of the long latency period, reconstructing exposure, including outside traditional industry, remains necessary decades later for research and prevention.
Source: Amianto, un nuovo catalogo delle occasioni di esposizione per rafforzare la prevenzione, 16-10-2026
Additionally researched: Asbestos: elimination of asbestos-related diseases (WHO); Directive (EU) 2023/2668
