Virgilia Toccaceli

Researcher, at the Italian Institute of Health (ISS)- National Centre of Epidemiology, since 1995. From 1995 to 2004 she was involved mainly in epidemiological studies of mortality: general mortality, different causes mortality and competing causes of death. Since 2005, she has been working in the Twin Registry Unit at the National Centre of Epidemiology (ISS), her research interests focussed on attitude, knowledge and practice of individuals involved in research studies and biobanking. When the Twin Registry Unit moved in 2016 into the Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health (ISS), she continued to investigate behavioural aspects, in particular, pro-sociality and related traits like "empathy". In 2016, her research interests gathered around Chronic Pain. In particular, she has started to investigate the social and mental health impact of Chronic Non-cancer Pain thanks to the collaboration of experts and pain clinicians of the ISAL Foundation (Rimini, Italy). In 2018, she designed a plan of investigations that was framed within a Scientific Agreement between ISS and ISAL, to achieve a few important goals: (i) to update Chronic Pain prevalence estimates in Italy, the survey has been conducted in 2019 in collaboration with ISTAT and it is recognized within the "Italian National Statistical Plan"; (ii) to investigate the genetic and environmental architecture of Chronic non-cancer Pain and its mental health correlates through the twin model, and (iii) to design a proposal for the next Horizon Europe call to investigate "unexpressed" and "untreated" Chronic Pain among the general populations in Eu. Moreover, alongside with her research activities, during the last 15 years, she has become a "ground-expert" of privacy issues in research, personal data treatment and health data flows . For this expertise, she has been member of the Scientific Boards of the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Registry and of the Italian Arthroplasty Registry.