The Fondazione Angelo Celli per una Cultura della Salute has been founded in Perugia on July, 10, 1987. As suggested by the Ministry of Health, the Fondazione acquired legal status by a President of Republic Degree April, 18, 1989 (published on "Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana", 9 giugno 1989, serie generale, n. 133, p. 23). The Fondazione has been promoted by Alessandro Seppilli, who gave the starting patrimony and was the first President until 1993, and then he was honorary President until his death (February, 2, 1995). He decided name the Fondazione after Angelo Celli (1857-1914), who has been defined in Enciclopedia Italiana as the most prominent among the XIX century hygienists because of he shared his work between the university teaching, scientific research about the most important pathologies of that time and a political engagement to improve the life condition of people, especially the poor, and to plan a health care strategy able to pay attention not only to the care of sicknesses but also to the prevention.

AIMS AND GOALS

The main aim of Fondazione is the building and spreading of patterns of culture - then knowledge, values, behavioural patterns and styles of life - that can help to promote the individual and collective health. The Fondazione is working particularly on the relations between life conditions, cultural patterns, the life styles and practices which can influence - directly or indirectly - the health, referred especially to socio-economic change contexts. In this perspective it promotes and realize - by itself or in co-operation with other organization - researches, workshops, meetings, counselling, publishing, training courses at various levels.

The Fondazione has, at different level and with different tools, investigated on the social factors which intervene in the health/sickness dynamics, cultural representation concerning body, nourishment, somatic and psychic pathologies; on conventional and unconventional institutions finalized to preserve the health; on the communication and folkways phenomena which affect conceptions about health; on self-care and health seeking behaviours; on the doctor/patient relations and more in general on the relation between delivery health system and users, to try to contribute to a more convenient socio-cultural adjustment of health strategies and to promote and spread a culture of health both in people and professionals. It is to stress as this aim and these activities are present and of priority relevance today, in a social and cultural landscape where the factors which intervene in the health/sickness dynamics are implementing, and where there an increasing co-existence and intertwinement of manifold "medical systems" which has as result that the users recourse - side by side or one by one - to different "care resources", creating in this way real multicultural mosaics.