National public health institutes: A scoping review

Abstract

During the last century, national public health institutes emerged to address enduring and emergency public health challenges. Previous outbreaks often compelled countries to establish national institutes of public health. Despite historic legacies and contributions to public health, no review of this literature has been published. The aim of this scoping review is to provide an overview of this literature and map characteristics including format, authorship, geographic focus, methods, language, focal topic and public health capacity building domains. The scoping review was guided the Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework and utilised the PRISMA-ScR checklist. A systematic search of Medline OVID and Scopus databases yielded 5731 records. In total, 43 articles met the eligibility criteria. Articles were published in English, Spanish, French and Russian and included perspectives from over 20 countries in Africa, Europe, North America and South America. Three reported methods or collected primary data. Findings reveal a longstanding international interest in leveraging national institutes to address complex public health challenges. Lack of studies reporting methods reveals the need for future research utilising robust methodology. Several articles recommend investment in national public health institutes as a strategy to respond to crises and strengthen countries' public health systems.

Bridging global health actors and agendas: the role of national public health institutes

“…We derived a formative list of key informants from a scoping review of NPHI literature [ 16 ]. We conducted initial interviews with twelve authors of peer-reviewed journal articles focusing on NPHIs.…”

National public health institutes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: Insights from experts in the field

“…Despite basic information about the official NPHIs in EMR countries being available on the IANPHI’s website, there is no information on their mandates, roles and responsibilities and governance arrangements. Moreover, current empirical evidence suggests a significant lack of knowledge regarding the governance arrangements of official NPHIs or NPHI-like organisations in EMR countries and how they fit into the broader health systems governance landscape 6 10 11. For the purpose of this study, NPHIs are classified by their IANPHI membership, while NPHI-like organisations are those that closely align with the IANPHI’s standardised NPHI definition and core attributions and functions, without having official IANPHI membership.…”

Facilitators, Barriers and Views on the Role of Public Health Institutes in Promoting and Using Health Impact Assessment—An International Virtual Scoping Survey and Expert Interviews

“…The recent pandemic has also highlighted the critical importance of PHIs and the key expertise and skill sets held within them to address important health threats [ 2 ]. However, presently, the range of public health activities within a PHI can vary and include a focus on advocating for health and well-being at a national level, reducing health inequalities, tackling non-communicable diseases such as obesity, and policy work [ 2 , 6 ]. They also include the same historical focus on health protection and communicable diseases (including immunizations, epidemiology and infectious diseases), environmental health and safety, and health services research [ 3 ].…”