International Association of National Public Health Institutes
The International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) is an international umbrella organization of national public health institutes (NPHIs), public health government agencies working to improve national disease prevention and response. IANPHI is made up of 100+ members, located in more than 90 countries.[1] An important goal of IANPHI is to improve health outcomes by strengthening NPHIs or supporting countries in creating new NPHIs.[citation needed]
As of 2023 IANPHI’s president is professor Duncan Selbie,[2] former chief executive of Public Health England. The IANPHI Secretariat is based at Santé Publique France,[3] and the US Office is located at the Emory University Global Health Institute in Atlanta, GA. The IANPHI Foundation is located in Finland at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. Coordinated by Secretary General Jean Claude Desenclos, the IANPHI team is responsible for member relations and programs, policy, communications and NPHI development projects, and the IANPHI annual meeting.
At its inception (2002-2006), IANPHI received seed funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and a one-year planning grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). BMGF subsequently awarded multi-year funds for IANPHI's development and to support projects to build NPHIs in low- and middle-income countries. Resources have since been contributed e.g. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)[4] A recent role for IANPHI has been to work with the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) project.[5][6]
NPHIs usually lead national efforts for disease surveillance and outbreak investigation (to monitor population health trends and detect and resolve outbreaks), laboratory services (to identify and confirm disease threats), health programs (including recommendations for immunizations and maternal and child health initiatives), and public health workforce development and research (including new treatments and technologies). NPHIs are designed to give governments the ability to assess and address major acute and long-term disease threats in a country using scientific, evidence-based policies and strategies, as well as create a career home for public health researchers and scientists, thereby fostering the evidence-based approaches necessary to ensure that government policies are based on scientific evidence rather than politics.[citation needed]
History and activities
In 2002, the directors of nearly 30 NPHIs met in Bellagio, Italy to share best practices and discuss opportunities for collaboration. In 2004, the group reconvened in Helsinki and declared its intention to forge an alliance.[10]
IANPHI was formally launched at the first General Assembly in Brazil in January 2006, with 39 founding members and a one-year grant from the Gates Foundation. Under a subsequent five-year grant from the Gates Foundation awarded in late 2006, the membership has expanded to 100 institutes in 88 countries around the world.[10]
Leadership development (creating an international community of NPHI directors)
Peer-to-Peer Partnerships
One of IANPHI's distinctive features and strengths is a peer-assistance approach that facilitates sharing of expertise and experience among member NPHIs.[12] The model clearly benefits the recipient NPHI by identifying strategies to address priority needs and raising standards of performance for organizing and conducting public health functions. But it rewards the contributing institute as well – by sharing skills and assets to benefit others while also linking resources and solutions to address regional and global health threats and opportunities.[citation needed]
For the network of IANPHI members, the model provides unique opportunities for NPHIs to link with others that are geographically or linguistically similar or are struggling with similar technical or programmatic issues, such as information system development or pandemic preparedness. This collaborative approach also provides a platform for developing research or programs to address shared issues, whether laboratory safety or avian influenza, tobacco use or injury.[citation needed]
IANPHI is managed by an executive board and secretariat. Executive board members consider and vote on issues of strategic direction and policy and on project and funding recommendations. There are currently 14 active members on the executive board:[71]
Duncan Selbie - IANPHI President, Former Chief Executive, Public Health England, United Kingdom
Meerjady Sabrina Flora - IANPHI Vice President, Former Director General, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research and National Influenza Center, Bangladesh
André van der Zande - Immediate Past President, IANPHI, Former Director General, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, The Netherlands
Martha Lucia Ospina - Director, Instituto Nacional de Salud, Colombia
George F. Gao - Director, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China
Ebba Abate - Director, Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), Ethiopia
Lothar H. Wieler - President, Robert Koch Institute, Germany
Juan Rivera Dommarco - Director, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Mexico
Camilla Stoltenberg - Director General, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway
Akhmetov Valikhan Isaevich - Former Director, National Centre for Public Healthcare, Kazakhstan
Abdullah Algwizani - Chief Executive Officer, Saudi Centers for Disease Control, Saudi Arabia
Aamer Ikram - Executive Director, National Institute of Health, Pakistan
Sabin Nsanzimana - Director General, Rwanda Biomedical Center, Rwanda
Markku Tervahauta - Director General, Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare, Finland
Emeritus Members
Igbal Abukarig - Director, Public Health Institute, Sudan
Paulo Buss - Former President, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation/FIOCRUZ, Brazil[72]
Reinhard Burger - President, Robert Koch Institute, Germany
David Butler Jones - Director, Public Health Agency of Canada[73]
Cesar Cabezas - Director, National Institute of Health, Peru
L. S. Chauhan - Director, National Centre for Disease Control, India
Rajae El Aouad - Former Director, National Institute of Hygiene, Morocco[74]
Naima El Mdaghri - Director General, Institut Pasteur du Maroc, Morocco
Mohammed Hassar - Former Director, Institute Pasteur du Maroc, Morocco
Mauricio Hernández-Avila - IANPHI Immediate Past President, Former Director, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico
Oni Idigbe - Former Director General & Director of Research, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Nigeria
Ilesh Jani - Director General, National Institute of Health, Mozambique
Amha Kebede - Director, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Ethiopia
Jeffrey Koplan, IANPHI Senior Advisor, Vice President for Global Health, Emory University, USA
Justin McCracken - Former Chief Executive, Health Protection Agency, United Kingdom
Tsehaynesh Messele - Former Director General, Health and Nutrition Research Institute, Ethiopia
Pekka Puska - Former IANPHI President, Former Director General, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland
Mahmudur Rahman - Director, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control, and Research, Bangladesh
Amabélia Rodrigues - Former President, National Institute of Public Health, Guinea Bissau
Mario Henry Rodriguez - Former General Director, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico
Pathom Sawanpanyalert - Former Director General, National Institute of Health
Barry Schoub - Former Executive Director, National Institute of Communicable Diseases, South Africa
Marc Sprenger - Director, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Netherlands
Geir Stene-Larsen - Director General, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Gregory Taylor - Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada
Jaroslav Volf - Former Director, National Institute of Public Health, Czech Republic
Yu Wang - Director-General, Centers for Disease Control, China
Jane Wilde - Former Chief Executive, Institute of Public Health in Ireland
IANPHI's long-term projects help public health systems in low-resource countries respond to modern public health challenges, improve outcomes, and support healthy populations and strong economies. These intensive multi-year engagements develop and strengthen national public health institutes (NPHIs), moving them forward on a continuum from those least developed to those with a comprehensive and coordinated scope of public health responsibilities. Currently, IANPHI has ongoing long-term projects in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo.[76]
^"CDC Works 24/7". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. April 26, 2023. Archived from the original on September 25, 2019. Retrieved April 29, 2023.