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A history

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The Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH) is an all-island body established to promote North-South cooperation in public health. Its primary focus is on tackling health inequalities and influencing public policy in favour of health.

Part of the Institute’s remit is to ‘strengthen the information and skills people need to work for improvements in the health of society’

In 2002, Investing for Health, Northern Ireland’s public health strategy, called on the Institute ‘to develop plans for comparative monitoring of trends in health, the determinants of health and health inequalities, North and South and relative to the other European Union (EU) countries’. 

 Action II of Ireland’s Health Information: A National Strategy stated that a population health observatory would be established, it should have a North-South as well as an international dimension, and be developed within existing infrastructure.

In 2003/2004, the Institute received seed funding from the Health Research Board (HRB) of Ireland and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) of Northern Ireland to:

  • develop some web-based tools for an all-island population health observatory;
  • develop a longer-term plan for the observatory.

 A broad-based advisory group was established to oversee the longer-term planning for the observatory. Its terms of reference were to:

  • engage with the observatory’s potential stakeholders;
  • advocate and build support for the observatory;
  • develop a longer-term vision of the observatory along with its first five-year plan;
  • ensure that the web-based tools were aligned with these.

This planning accommodated in a stakeholders' meeting, attended by over 100 delegates, that was held in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 2004. The outcome of the planning was captured in the Observatory’s first framework that was published in January 2006.

In March 2005, the Department of Health and Children (DOHC) in Ireland allocated funds to establish Ireland and Northern Ireland’s Population Health Observatory (INIsPHO) within the Institute. 

The Observatory’s operations and development continue to be guided by an expanded advisory group, a subgroup of the Institute’s management board, which is chaired by Dr Paula Kilbane, Chief Executive of the Eastern Health and Social Services Board (EHSSB) in Northern Ireland.

The Observatory now provides a focus for the Institute’s health intelligence function.

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