Norwegian Institute of Public Health
| Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1929 |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Headquarters | Oslo, Norway |
| Employees | 1000 (2014) |
| Annual budget | NOK 1500 million (2014) |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Ministry of Health and Care Services |
| Website | www |
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH, Norwegian: Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt (official), Folkehelseinstituttet (simplified)) is a subordinate institution to the Ministry of Health and Care Services. The NIPH acts as a national competence institution for governmental authorities, the health service, the judiciary, prosecuting authorities, politicians, the media and the general public.
The institute consists of an administrative division and five scientific divisions: Infectious Disease Control, Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology, Mental Health and Forensic Toxicology and Drug Abuse Research.
Main objectives: Health surveillance to give a good overview of the population’s health; research to give the best knowledge about what affects public health; and prevention i.e. good preparedness, advice and services of high quality
Current and new areas: Preparedness (communicable diseases and environmental medicine), mental health, drug research, health, population studies, laboratory-based research and surveillance.
The NIPH’s activities adapt to diseases in the population and challenges in health care and society. Consequently, the NIPH will give special attention to the following areas; diseases of ageing, lifestyle and health, social inequalities in health, health surveillance and registries, as well as global health challenges.
The predecessor to today’s institute, Statens institutt for folkehelse (SIFF), was founded in 1929 following a donation of 1 million Norwegian kroner from the Rockefeller Foundation. However, the idea of a public institute to address population health issues was born fifty years before and the notion of governmental responsibility for public preventive measures even earlier.
Initially, SIFF was responsible for providing vaccines and sera to the population and performing chemical analyses of water and food. Some years later, SIFF implemented immunisation programmes, but for several decades the scope of the institute was restricted to infectious disease control.
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