In autumn 2025, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), leader of Work Package 4 in the EU-funded BRAVE-WOW project (Building Respectful And Violence-free Gender-inclusive Environments in the World of Work), will contribute to two major initiatives addressing gender-based violence (GBV) and its impact on health and society.
On 17 October 2025, within the framework of World Trauma Day, ISS experts will take part in the online conference “Trauma e Violenza di Genere: prevenire, riconoscere, curare – l’urgenza di una risposta integrata a una ferita sociale” (Trauma and Gender-Based Violence: preventing, recognizing, treating – the urgency of an integrated response to a social wound), organised by SVITra and supported by the Regione Puglia. The event brings together clinicians, researchers, and policy actors to discuss psychological trauma as a public-health issue, emphasizing the long-term consequences of violence on both mental health and biological functioning.
Building on this dialogue, ISS will then participate in the international conference “Gender-based violence: what are the possible turning points between assessments and perspectives”, hosted by the University of Salerno on 25–26 November 2025. This year’s edition marks two major milestones — the 30th anniversary of the UN World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and the 10th anniversary of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
During the Salerno conference, ISS researchers will present a scientific abstract connecting the national EpiWE project (Violence against women: long-term health effects for precision prevention) and the European BRAVE-WOW project. The presentation will highlight BRAVE-WOW’s contribution to creating respectful, inclusive, and violence-free workplaces, with a particular focus on the healthcare sector. By applying innovative assessment tools — the Gender-Based Violence at Work Questionnaire (GBVW_Q) and the Decent Work Questionnaire (DWQ) — the project aims to identify risk factors, strengthen awareness, and foster organizational change through training and participatory interventions.
Through these initiatives, ISS demonstrates a comprehensive approach to violence prevention — from understanding trauma’s biological traces to transforming workplace cultures — reinforcing the shared mission of promoting gender equality, decent work, and health for all.