Oslo, Norway
— Camilla Stoltenberg, Director General
— Trygve Ottersen, Executive Director
History and Structure
Initially, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) was responsible for providing vaccines and sera to the population and performing chemical analyses of water and food. Some years later, NIPH implemented immunization programs, but for several decades, the scope of the institute was restricted to infectious disease control.
In the 1970s, NIPH established toxicology and epidemiology departments, increasingly focusing on prevention of non-contagious diseases as well as the traditional infectious disease control. In the 1980s health services research was incorporated.
In 2002 and 2003, NIPH merged with several other institutions and units to form a new, more comprehensive public health institute. The new institute was given responsibility for all health-related population registries, except the Cancer Registry of Norway. It also coordinated all public collection of epidemiological data in the country, as well as conducting forensic toxicology and drug abuse research.
Over the past years, NIPH has been reorganizing its activities and structure. From January 2016, the former Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (NOKC) was, among other national institutions, incorporated as part of NIPH. The former NOKC has become Divison for health services, an additional fourth domain to the three existing ones in NIPH, which constitute NIPH’s overarching organizational structure today.
Mission
We support decision makers in the health and welfare services by providing knowledge to help ensure high quality and equitable services.
Activities
Current activities of the new domain within NIPH are divided into three main entities:
- HTA, systematic reviews and dissemination, teaching and support for EBM and evidence-based policy, clinical guidelines, The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) research and method development, method support to Cochrane Collaboration, EPOC (Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group) satellite, and secretariat for the Campbell Collaboration.
- Patient and user experience surveys, quality measurements and improvement in the health services, patient safety, and comparative health system analysis.
- Norwegian electronic health library (Helsebiblioteket).
HTA-related activities are:
- HTA, including full HTAs, rapid assessments, early warnings and support to mini-HTAs
- Systematic reviews, Cochrane and Campbell
- Communications of HTA and Cochrane reports
International collaboration in HTA networks, institutions and organisations globally include:
- Lead Partner in EUnetHTA Work Package 4 in Joint Action 3 (2015-2018) and active member in other WPs in JA3
- Organizational member of HTAi and HTAi Policy Forum
- Member of EuroScan International Network
- Active contributions in WHO programs and projects
Dissemination
NIPH publishes reports that are disseminated to defined target groups – clinicians, health policy makers, administrators, media and the general public.
All publications are available through our web pages. Workshops and seminars for target groups as well as teaching are also part of our dissemination activities.
Agency Information
Country: Norway
Description of population served: National
Population served (mil): 5.1
NIPH employees: 900 (working within HTA: 60)
Contact Information
Executive Director: Trygve Ottersen
Contact person: Katrine Frønsdal
Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Box 4404
N-0403 Oslo, Norway
Tel: +47 21 07 70 00
Fax: +47 22 35 36 05
Internet: http://www.fhi.no
Email: Katrine.Fronsdal@fhi.no