Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), Olso, Norway
Contact person
Dr Preben AavitslandPb 4404 Nydalen
N-0403 Oslo, Norway
Tel +47 21 07 66 43
Fax +47 21 07 65 13
Description of institute
NIPH is the Norwegian governmental research institute of public health and the main adviser to the Ministry of Health in this field. The institute has approximately 800 employees in five divisions: infectious disease control, environmental medicine, general epidemiology, mental health and forensic toxicology. The Norwegian name of the institute is ”Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt” or just ”Folkehelseinstituttet”.The institute runs the Norwegian surveillance system for communicable diseases and the surveillance system for hospital acquired infections and hosts several reference laboratories that support the surveillance. NIPH assists the 431 municipal public health officers and the hospitals in investigating and handling outbreaks, co-ordinates the development of guidelines in infectious disease control, performs applied research in infectious disease epidemiology, communicates with the media on these matters and trains doctors and nurses in infectious disease control.
Extramural co-operation is mainly with the National Food Control Agency, the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs (infectious disease legislation), and the University of Oslo.
The PC network is based on Windows, with software such as Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, Explorer, Reference Manager, Stata, SPSS and EpiInfo.
The main library subscribes to the major journals in general medicine, clinical microbiology, infectious diseases medicine, epidemiology, public health and other specialities. The satellite library in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology receives epidemiological bulletins from several sister institutions and maintains a collection of reference literature.
Training opportunities
EPIET fellows will receive their training in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology where they will have an office (possibly shared with one other person) with a portable PC with docking station. The Department is responsible for the Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases ("MSIS"), which has a very high coverage rate and is based on SQL with Excel as user tool (see www.msis.no), the surveillance system for hospital acquired infections (”NOIS”) and the national epidemic intelligence functions. The Department co-operates closely with other departments at the institute, and most research projects in infectious disease epidemiology are multidisciplinary.The Department presently employs approximately 35 people, including some 13 medical doctors, five veterinarians, 13 nurse epidemiologists and six administrators and secretaries.
EPIET fellows take part in the day to day work in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, including discussion, analysis and publication of high quality surveillance data, development of evidence-based guidelines, answering ad hoc inquiries from local doctors, assisting municipal health officers with outbreak control (in the field, if needed), writing for the weekly "MSIS-rapport" (see www.fhi.no/smittevern), communicating with the mass media, working on research projects, and taking part in ECDC sponsored surveillance and collaboration. We have a policy of involving fellows in all parts of the work in the department. The department is involved in several outbreak investigations every year.
The Department maintains strong links with similar institutes in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Northwestern regions of Russia (see http://www.fhi.no/artikler/?id=49923). The Department leads the international project EpiNorth and hosts the editorial secretariat of the EpiNorth journal (see www.epinorth.org). We also coordinates several projects in Northwest Russia. The EPIET fellows will get opportunities to work in these projects with English as working language, including lectures and facilitation of group works during courses.
Training supervision
The main supervisor is Preben Aavitsland who is Department Director. Other supervisors include EPIET alumni Karin Nygård, Line Vold, Hanne-Merete Eriksen, Hilde Kløvstad, Katrine Borgen, Inga Velicko and EIS alumnus Elmira Flem.Language requirements
English is widely spoken and understood by almost everyone in Norway. Thus, the EPIET fellow must speak and write English well. Conversational skills in Norwegian (or another Scandinavian language) would be an asset when providing services to local health officials, but is not a requirement. On site in Norwegian language by a private teacher is given. Due to our collaboration with Russia, knowledge of Russian is an asset.Other
A report from the EPIET training site appraisal at the institute in June 2007 is available upon request.The previous EPIET fellows and national EPIET-associated fellows trained in the Department will be happy to answer your questions:
Markku Kuusi (Finnish, 1997-99)
Philippe Guérin (French, 2000-2002)
Egil Bjørløw (Norwegian, 2001-2003)
Line Vold (Norwegian, 2001-2003)
Hanne-Merete Eriksen (Norwegian, 2002-2004)
Hilde Kløvstad (Norwegian, 2003-2005)
Barbara Schimmer (Dutch, 2004-2006)
Agnes Hajdu (Hungarian, 2005-2007)
The current fellows may also give information:
Irena Jakopanec (Slovenian, 2006-2008)
Thale Madssen (Norwegian, 2006-2009)
Karina Junussova (Estonian, 2007-2009)
Siri Helene Hauge (Norwegian, 2007-2009)
Training history
Number of EPIET and national associated (Nor-FETP) fellows trained at institute: twelve (1997, 2000, 2001, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006[2], 2007[2])
Number of EPIET alumni working at institute: Six
Available as training site for cohort 14: Yes