Community psychology in Italy: introduction and prospects.

The history of community psychology in Italy is briefly reviewed. The field has developed extensively in universities and applied settings over the past 30 years. This issue presents 5 recent examples from different regions of Italy of preventive and other community psychological intervention studies. They include an evaluation of a program to increase the independent mobility of children walking to and from school, the ecological evaluation of child and adolescent residential care communities, participatory action-research with adolescents in schools and neighborhoods, evaluation of a participatory local health intervention planning process, and the description and evaluation of a collaborative, Internet-based community planning training program.