Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia

The Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia (IPHRS) is the national public health institute whose predecessor was founded in 1923 on Andrija Stampar’s initiative. Following various developmental phases it has become the central Slovenian institution for public health practice, research and education.

Its 100 academic staff works on various tasks covering the areas of social medicine, epidemiology of communicable diseases, hygiene and environmental health. These functions are performed on behalf of the Ministry of Health, the Health Inspectorate, the Health Insurance Institute, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and several other national and regional institutions. Apart from functioning as the central national health statistics institution, it co-ordinates the national vaccination programme, food and drinking water safety monitoring, etc.

It has its own reference laboratories to perform most of the tests required. It has successfully participated in various international research projects, like APHEIS, influenza monitoring, Future Patient, Europe for Patients, Gendep etc. There is a regional network of public health institutes which are professionally but not organisationally subordinated to the national institute. IPHRS is a registered national research institute having a special contract for under- and postgraduate education with the Medical Faculty of Ljubljana, the Nursing School of Ljubljana and provides its own educational programmes in social medicine, offering also postgraduate training in the specialty of public health medicine.