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Fabio Porru

Researcher
Fabio Porru

Research group

Social Epidemiology
Fabio Porru

I work as a postdoctoral researcher for the project “Making big data meaningful for a promising start in the first 1000 days of life”. My role is to apply a systems thinking approach to disentangle the complexity behind early child development.

Graduated in Medicine and Surgery, most of my research was focused on public mental health. In the coming year I will defend my Ph.D. thesis entitled “Causes and consequences of mental health problems in the population”. With my doctorate I have adopted an occupational perspective to investigate the relation between study/work and health, especially in the young population and among university students.

I aim to have a societal impact, and I try to achieve this at multiple levels. I aspire to have a high impact on academia through excellent and innovative research. In addition, I want to be the type of scientist who takes time to explain to people and society the meaning and the importance of science. I am working on many online projects to raise awareness on mental health and fight the stigma for mental disorders, and to promote scientific research.

I believe education is the base of our society in terms of health, social equality, and having a fulfilling life. Consequently, education is also the strongest weapon to improve society and people’s life. This is why I am actively trying to get into teaching. This is why changes in the education system are among the goals of the research project on students’ health I developed and that, and I want my research to serve as the basis for an evidence-based innovation.

I am very interested in social problems, such as social inequalities, refugee crisis, climate change, and gender inequalities, and l am always ready to play my part to improve myself, my environment, and society. this is why I have joined the Green Team and the Diversity & Inclusion task forces at the Erasmus MC.

Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC
Doctor Molewaterplein 40,
3015 GD, Rotterdam
the Netherlands

Publications list

Most relevant publications

Associations of university student life challenges with mental health and self-rated health: A longitudinal study with 6 months follow-up

Porru F., Schuring M., Bültmann U., Portoghese I., Burdorf A., Robroek SJW

Journal of Affective Disorders

Mental health among university students: the associations of effort-reward imbalance and overcommitment with psychological distress

Porru F., Robroek S., Bültmann U., Portoghese I., Campagna M., Burdorf A.

Journal of Affective Disorders

The covid-19 pandemic: One year later – an occupational perspective

Burdorf A., Porru F., Rugulies R.

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health

The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic: consequences for occupational health

Burdorf A., Porru F., Rugulies R.

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health

The impact of depressive symptoms on exit from paid employment in Europe: a longitudinal study with 4 years follow-up

Porru F., Burdorf A., Robroek SJW

European Jorunal of Public Health

Stress among university students: factorial structure and measurement invariance of the Italian version of the Effort-Reward Imbalance student questionnaire

Portoghese I., Galletta M., Porru F., Burdorf A., Sardo S., D'Aloja E., Finco G., Campagna M.

BMC Psychology

Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students

Portoghese I., Porru F., Galletta M., Campagna M., Burdorf A.

BMJ Open

Measuring Burnout Among University Students: Factorial Validity, Invariance, and Latent Profiles of the Italian Version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory Student Survey (MBI-SS)

Portoghese I., Leiter M., Maslach C., Galletta M., Porru F., D'Aloja E., Finco G., Campagna M

Frontiers in Psychology

Awareness and preparedness of healthcare workers against the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional survey across 57 countries

TMGH-Global COVID-19 Collaborative

PloS one

Comorbidities, cardiovascular therapies, and COVID-19 mortality: a nationwide, Italian observational study (ItaliCO)

ItaliCO study group

Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine

Within the University Cares (UniCares) project, my team has validated multiple tools in order to investigate mental health among Italian university students.

  • Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Setting (MBI-SS)
  • Effort-Reward Imbalance – Student Questionnaire (ERI-SQ) – Available here
  • Higher Education Stress Inventory – Italian (HESI- ITA) . Available here
  • University Stress Scale – Short (USS-S) – Available here

I was invited as keynote speaker for the webinar “Mental health at university: a public health perspective” organised by SISM Bari and SISM Monza, and as a speaker for “The working dead: conoscere e affrontare il burnout nelle professioni sanitarie” organised by Gruppo Prometeo.

I have worked as a teaching assistant for five courses organized by the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences (NIHES):

  • Public Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, by Prof. Alex Burdorf (2020)
  • Methods in public health research, by Prof. Alex Burdorf (2020, 2021)
  • Social epidemiology, by Prof. Frank van Lenthe (2020, 2021)

for these courses, my tasks included the development of the course in order to increase students’ engagement by increasing interaction, providing feedback to students, technical support, and moderation of the discussion.

I have supervised multiple students on their master thesis project and many others in their first research experience.

Since years I have been using social media (Facebook, Instagram) to raise awareness on mental health and to disseminate scientific knowledge in the general population and among students.

La strage dei medici spiegata con i numeri e con soluzioni per il dopo [in Italian]