Institute of Public Health
Leiter
Prof. Dr. Rainer Sauerborn
Im Neuenheimer Feld 324
69120 Heidelberg
Tel: 06221 / 56 5344
Fax: 06221 / 56 5948
rainer.sauerborn@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
Stellvertretender Leiter
Prof. Dr. Heiko Becher
Im Neuenheimer Feld 324
69120 Heidelberg
Tel: 06221 / 56 5031
Fax: 06221 / 56 5948
heiko.becher@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
The Institute of Public Health (former department Tropenhygiene und öffentliches Gesundheitswesen / Tropical Hygiene and Public Health, Heidelberg) was founded in 1962 and has steadily grown since. It currently has a staff of about 60, which includes the chair, two additional full professors (C3 and APL), three assistant professors (scientists with ‘habilitation’), research associates, support staff (lab technicians, managers and staff assistants, and a varying number of visiting scholars, post doctoral fellows and doctoral students.
The Institute of Public Health is part of the Medical School/Medical faculty which in turn is part of the University of Heidelberg. The Institute receives public core funding. However, more than half of our funds are competitively acquired for research and teaching activities. Our mission statement emphasizes our international perspective with a focus on low and middle income countries.
Mission statement
Our mission is to contribute to the improvement of health through research, teaching and direct services (patient care, consulting) in developing countries and at home.
To fulfill this mission, we attach great importance to linking our activities in two ways: on the one hand, we want to make sure that our staff teaches, evaluates development projects in the health sector of low and middle income countries and participates in research so that their insight and experience from different activities are enhancing each other. As an example, research results are fed immediately into lectures; insights from policy evaluation help us in the design of our own research projects. On the other hand, we seek to look at health and health systems from an international perspective, linking experience in the north and south. An example is our study of different ways to organize health insurance, spanning from our own Bismarckian social security to community-based insurance in Burkina Faso. A third linkage we cherish at the Institute, is the linkage between different disciplines. Health economists, epidemiologists, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, mathematicians, geographers, management specialists and biologists work closely together with public health and clinical physicians.
Our staff is working within six thematic units:
- Epidemiology and Biostatistics
- Health Systems Research
- Clinical Tropical Medicine
- Infectious Disease Control
- Global environmental change and health
- Junior group of international health economics
Each unit develops their substance area integrating research, teaching and service. In addition, we have a teaching office to coordinate and support the Institute’s teaching activities. A management support staff coordinates administrative and financial tasks.
A lead team comprised of the unit heads and the head of the management unit is chaired by the director and is responsible for strategy and decision-making.
Research networks
From the Institute, several research and training collaborations have been initiated:
SFB 544: “Control of tropical infectious diseases” (founding coordinator: Rainer Sauerborn)
Graduate School 793 “Epidemiology” (founding coordinator + Speaker: Heiko Becher)
Graduate School of International Public Health (founding coordinator: Rainer Sauerborn)
5-year post-doctoral position in „International Health Economics"
starting 1.1.2010 - details see here
