The Department belongs to the School of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition. It is part of the Medical Faculty at the University of Kuopio, but our field is broad and is by no means limited to medicine only.

Life at the University depends on finding, creating and utilizing new knowledge. The research in our Unit deals with health and changes of health in various populations, causes and natural cause of diseases, ways of preventing illness and disability, health promotion among populations, aspects of health policy and health care services in Finland and elsewhere, cultural and social aspects of health...the list is long.

In teaching we bear our share in the training of medical students (including further education for medical doctors), public health students, and clinical nutrition students. We offer all levels of University education: bachelor, graduate, doctoral, and professional (such as medical specialty training in some fields). Our teaching program also contains a wide range of studies at the Open University, which, as the name states, is open for anyone interested in public health and related studies. Our special strength is the international teaching: the programs and courses that we offer in English.

The specific subject fields that are represented in our Department are: biostatistics, clinical and public health nutrition, environmental health, epidemiology, general practice and family medicine, general public health, geriatrics, global health, medical anthropology, health education and health promotion, health psychology and medical sociology.

The Department is in close collaboration with the other units of The School: family medicine, geriatrics, occupational health, and clinical nutrition.

The Department is widely interconnected in many domestic and international networks of research and higher education.