The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) (Norwegian: Folkehelseinstituttet; FHI) is a Norwegian government agency and research institute, and is Norway's national public health institute. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Health and Care Services. NIPH acts as a national competence institution in public health in a broad sense for governmental authorities, the health service, the judiciary, prosecuting authorities, politicians, the media and the general public, international organisations and foreign governments. The institute has around 1400 employees. The institute's main activities are health surveillance, research and prevention. The institute consists of research divisions for infection control and environmental health, mental and physical health, health data and digitalisation, and the Knowledge Centre for Public Health. From 2019 the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies also becomes part of NIPH. The institute has an extensive cooperation with the World Health Organization. Camilla Stoltenberg has served as director-general of the institute since 2012. History The fight against infectious diseases 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. The first director was Einar Aaser. 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. In the 1970s, SIFF established toxicology and epidemiology departments, focusing increasingly on prevention of non-contagious diseases as well as traditional infectious disease control. Health services research was incorporated in the 1980s. Reorganisation and expansion In 2002 and 2003, SIFF merged with several other institutions and units to form a new, comprehensive public health institute. The new institute was given responsibility for all health-related population registries, except the Cancer Registry of Norway. It would coordinate all public collection of epidemiological data in the country, as well as conduct forensic toxicology and drug abuse research. The name changed from Statens institutt for folkehelse to Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt but the English name, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, remained the same. The new role as national co-ordinator in several fields emphasised the importance of co-operation with universities, hospitals and other research institutes and