Background: Gela (Sicily, Italy) is an ?area at high risk of environmental crisis? due to the presence of a petrochemical hub.

Aim: to identify different risk perception profiles among patients, focusing on the risk perception of respiratory diseases within the NETTUNIT project (GRANT_PROGRAMME IEV CT ITALIE TUNISIE 2014-2020 IS_3.1_097).

Methods: 601 residents in the area of Gela Local Health Authority (20-90 years old) were interviewed between January and March 2022, for assessing the perception of environmental hazards and risks in such critical area. Latent Class Analysis (LCA), that allows to classify a sample into several classes according to observed variables' categories, was used.

Results: The best LCA model (in terms of goodness of fit) identified three latent classes, interpreted as risk perception profiles: medium (n=39), medium-high (n=259) and high (n=303). Medium-high class had a quite low perception (35.9%) of the risk of chronic respiratory diseases, despite having a very high perception (84.8-100%) of all the other health risks related to the proximity to industrial plants. The other two classes had a very high (98.5%) and medium-high (69.7%) risk perception for chronic respiratory diseases.

Conclusions: Raising awareness on industrial pollution impacts on chronic respiratory diseases is needed, as almost half of the sample (n=259) perceived this risk to be less than others.