Public Health Foundation of India

The Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) is a public private initiative that works to strengthen public health in India through education, research, training and policy support. It says it was built through consultations with Indian and international academia, state and central governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies and civil society groups. Since it began in 2006, PHFI has set up six Indian Institutes of

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Public Health around the country with the support of state governments. It carries out research across several disciplines to produce scientific evidence for public health, and it runs centres of excellence on priority areas such as chronic disease, injuries, environmental health and climate change. Its partners include central and state governments, national and international donors, civil society, academic and research institutions, and the communities it works with.

Headquarters: Gurugram, Haryana, India

Major Areas of Work

• Public Health Research: Research across several disciplines that produces scientific evidence to guide health policy and practice in India.

• Public Health Education: Postgraduate, eLearning and short-term academic programmes taught through the Indian Institutes of Public Health.

• Training and Capacity Building: Programmes that build the knowledge, skills and core competencies of healthcare professionals.

• Health Promotion: Evidence-informed health promotion work in India and the South-East Asia region.

• Policy and Technical Support: Evidence and technical help for central and state governments on public health problems.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs): A network of six institutes in Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Shillong and Bengaluru, each set up with the support of the state government where it is located.

• PHFI Centres: Centres of excellence for research, training and education in priority areas of public health. They are the Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity & Social Determinants of Health, the Centre of Chronic Condition and Injuries (CCCI), the Centre for Environment Health, the JSW Centre for Climate Change and Health, the PHFI Centre for Developmental and Lifecourse Research, the PHFI Injury Prevention Research Centre and an ICMR-Collaborating Centre of Excellence.

• Health Promotion Division (HPD): Set up in 2010 as a hub for evidence-informed health promotion in India and the South-East Asia region.

• PHFI Training Division: Capacity building programmes that build the knowledge, skills and core competencies of healthcare professionals in clinical conditions.

The IIPHs are at the centre of PHFI's academic work. The Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar was set up under a 2007 agreement with the Government of Gujarat. It was declared a State Private University in 2015 and describes itself as India's first public health university. IIPH Hyderabad is the main campus of the PHFI Institute of Public Health Sciences, a Deemed to be University notified by the Ministry of Education, with IIPH Bhubaneswar and IIPH Bengaluru as its constituent units. IIPH Delhi and IIPH Shillong run as independent societies and offer postgraduate programmes in partnership with national institutes and universities. The institutes also give technical support to governments: IIPH Bhubaneswar works with Odisha and other eastern states, and IIPH Shillong focuses on the Northeast.

Impact

PHFI's own site cites more than 46,000 people trained, over 9,700 graduates and more than 5,000 publications. It has set up six public health institutes with state government support, including agreements with the Governments of Gujarat, Odisha and Meghalaya. It also hosts the JSW Centre for Climate Change and Health and a collaborating centre of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

PHFI suits people who want to work where research, teaching and government policy meet in Indian public health. The work covers research on chronic disease, environmental health, climate and health, child development, equity and injury prevention, as well as teaching, training and health promotion. Staff work closely with central and state governments, academic partners and international collaborators, and the research is regularly published in national and international journals. Its institutes in Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Shillong and Bengaluru give options in several regions. It is a good fit for public health graduates, researchers, clinicians moving into population health and anyone interested in health systems and policy.