The Italian Hub of Population Biobanks as a Potential Tool for Improving Public Health Stewardship

Abstract

In Italy, a country that is experiencing the decentralization of health services from central to regional level of government, the Minister of Health is proposing stewardship as a model of governance for the public health system. Stewardship favors efficiency in the policy decision-making process, based on reciprocal trust, and tends to be more ethical. The embryonic proposal to test stewardship in the field of population-based research was advanced during the launching conference Challenges and Opportunities of the Italian Hub of Population Biobanks (HIBP) held in 2012 in Rome. Resources collected by population biobanks (i.e., blood and its derivatives, and/or DNA isolated from any type of biological samples and relative associated data) have, in fact, a recognized scientific value for the investigation of links between genetics, health and life style, and epidemiological outcomes through population biobank-based studies, and are essential to planning effective and qualified interventions for public health. The current economic crisis requires a strong push to rationalize investment in health policies. In particular, population biobank-based studies require financial commitment, often of long duration, for the realization of their goals. Thus, innovative solutions to allow fast integration of scientific knowledge into political health strategy are required. During the conference in Rome, it was proposed to test the stewardship model by its application to the inter-relationship between population biobank-based studies and disease prevention. Stewardship minimizes barriers to innovation and uses information more effectively to better develop new strategies for prevention and/or treatment. In the months following the conference, the proposal was defined more clearly, and the HIBP network became a potential tool for testing and implementing this model in the Italian Public Health prevention system.