In August 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the Centre for Epidemic Interventions Research at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health as a WHO Collaborating Center for effectiveness research on public health and social measures (PHSM) for health emergencies.
The designation follows a three-year collaboration in strengthening the global evidence base on PHSM, which began with the launch of the WHO Initiative to measure the effectiveness and impact of PHSM during health emergencies in June 2021.
The WHO Collaborating Centre was inaugurated at a seminar in Oslo on 25 November 2024 featuring welcome speeches by Ushman A. Mushtaq, State Secretary, Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services; Guri Rørtveit, General Director, Norwegian Institute of Public Health; and Mike Ryan, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme.
During the seminar, Atle Fretheim, Director of the new WHO Collaborating Centre, discussed the challenges of conducting randomized controlled trials during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example on the effectiveness of wearing face masks. He highlighted how lengthy ethical review procedures and the lack of study templates hindered the timely collection of high-quality and comparable data.
Ramona Ludolph, Technical Officer of the WHO PHSM Secretariat, presented WHO's efforts to promote PHSM research and evidence-informed decision-making, and spoke about how the new WHO Collaborating Center will contribute to advancing the global PHSM agenda. The seminar concluded with a panel discussion on the importance of international collaboration for policy-relevant research, featuring Frode Forland, Norwegian Institute of Public Health and African CDC; Halvor Sommerfelt, University of Bergen; and Tania Schmidt, WHO Regional Office for Europe.
The contributions of the WHO Collaborating Centre will be critical to closing persisting evidence gaps on the effectiveness of PHSM and strengthening research capacity in countries. Planned activities for the designated period of 2024–2028 include:
- the development of study protocol templates to measure the effectiveness of and adherence to PHSM;
- the development of a guide on adapting and implementing study protocol templates; and
- evidence reviews on the effectiveness, and health and socio-economic consequences of, PHSM implementation during infectious disease outbreaks.
Credit: WHO/Sam Bradd
