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babilità di comparsa delle alterazioni della salute nei lavoratori. Inoltre, questo
metodo gli ha anche permesso di intuire l’importanza, e di proporre, interventi
per la prevenzione. Questo metodo, esposto nel “De morbis artificum diatriba”,
ha condotto alla nascita della moderna valutazione del rischio, e resta sicura-
mente uno degli aspetti più originali ed innovativi del messaggio ramazziniano

Summary

How the Ramazzini method influenced modern risk assessment

Bernardino Ramazzini is universally regarded as the father of Occupational
Medicine for having systematically addressed the association between work
and health disorders. It can be noted that other scholars before him had also
described the occurrence of certain diseases in workers performing specific
jobs, but Ramazzini stands out decisively due to the innovative method he de-
veloped for his studies. His brilliant insight was to understand the importance

of visiting the workplaces to have a direct observation of the environments and
the ways in which work was carried out, also gathering information from the
workers themselves. Only through this approach—similar to what we now refer
to as an “on-site inspection” and certainly revolutionary at the time—was he
able not only to identify the hazards (i.e., potentially harmful factors) associated
with work, but also to analyze the methods and conditions of exposure, which
are fundamental in determining the possibility and probability of health disor-

ders occurring in workers. Moreover, this method also allowed him to grasp the
importance of preventive interventions. This approach, presented in his work
De Morbis Artificum Diatriba, led to the birth of modern risk assessment and
remains undoubtedly one of the most original and innovative aspects of Ramaz-
zini’s contribution.

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