Institut de Veille Sanitaire (InVS), Paris, France

Contact person

Dr. Georges Salines
Département Santé Environnement
Institut de Veille Sanitaire
12, rue du Val d’Osne
94415 Saint Maurice CEDEX
Paris, France
Tel  +33 1 41 79 6757
Fax +33 1 41 79 6768

Description of the institute

From cohort 1 until now the infectious disease department of InVS has been a training site for the EPIET program. The environmental health department (DSE) has been a second training site at InVS since 2005 (C11)

Training site

  • The DSE coordinates and supports the development of surveillance programs in the field of environmental health and estimates the health consequences of modifications of the environment, whether they are accidental or chronic, of human or natural origin. Its main surveillance programs are related to:

  • Media : a) Air (Outdoor and Indoor b) Water (Turbidity; gastroenteritis; legionella)
  • Chemicals : Arsenic, Lead, carbon monoxide, pesticides
  • Physical factors : Radon, medical radiations, noise
  • Activities : Health risks and pollution around Industrial sites, dumps, incinerators
  • Specific diseases : mesothelioma and other environment-related cancers and chronic diseases

    The DSE participates in European Programs:
  • as Main Coordinator : APHEKOM
  • as coordinator of a work package: INTARESE, ENHIS
  • as Partners : APHEA-POL, APHENA, PHEWE, AIRNET, PINCHE, SCALE-Biomonitoring (ESBIO), ESCAPE


    The DSE has about 50 permanent staff members and is organized in five units:
  • Air, Water & Climate
  • Intoxications & Biomonitoring
  • Accidents & Physical agents
  • Populations & settings
  • Statistics & tools

Training opportunities

  • The DSE offers many training opportunities in the field of environmental epidemiology and risk analysis:
  • investigation (assessing health impacts after natural or industrial disasters, assessing health impacts related to chronic exposures, investigating chronic diseases clusters….)
  • surveillance (designing and/or evaluating surveillance systems, analysing surveillance data )
  • Planned study: protocol design, data collection and analysis .


Writing scientific reports and articles or performing oral communications is expected. It is also possible to contribute to other training programs of the InVS (French course in applied epidemiology, training of French public health residents).

Training supervision

General supervision is provided by Georges Salines, Head of Department, and Daniel Eilstein, Scientific Advisor & Training Referent. Supervision of specific projects will be provided by senior members of the Department.

Language requirements

French and English

Training history

Number of EPIET fellows trained at institute: two (2005, 2007)
Number of EPIET alumni working at the institute: none
Available as a training site for cohort 14: Yes 		   
This website -www.epiet.org- is hosted by SMI and updated by ECDC, Sweden.