Institute of social and preventive medicine (IUMSP)
Lausanne

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Definition

Social and preventive medicine is the area of medicine which deals with maintaining and improving the health of the population. It creates, develops and uses the knowledge and techniques necessary for the implementation and management of therapeutic or preventive interventions, adapted to the health needs of the population.

Missions of IUMSP

Within social and preventive medicine, the specific missions of the IUMSP are as follows

1. Improving the organization and functioning of the different sectors of the health system
   • Identifying health service intervention priorities, i.e., the structures and care activities destined to preserve or restore the state of health of a population, through :
     • development of information systems related to health care,
     • measurement of the needs of the population with regard to health services,
     • identification of the determinants of access to the health services,
     • measurement of the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of health services.
   • Improving the quality of care through :
     • development and application of instruments designed to observe and improve the quality of hospital and outpatient care.
2. Strengthening the position of disease prevention and health promotion within the health system
   • Identifying prevention priorities through :
     • measurement of the frequency of the major diseases and quantification of their known risk factors,
     • identification of new risk factors for the major diseases,
     • measurement of the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of disease prevention and health promotion.
   • Improving the quality of preventive interventions through :
     • improvement of the quality of primary prevention of diseases and health promotion,
     • improvement of the quality of campaigns for the early detection of diseases.
   • Encouraging the development and application of quantitative methods in public health and clinical medicine through :
     • Study and development of sound analytical procedures and statistical software,
     • Application of sound statistical procedures in biomedical fields,
     • Development of other quantitative methods for health administration.

Activities

To achieve these aims, the IUMSP is carrying out activities in teaching, research and development, and services :

• Teaching, i.e., the training of individuals in social and preventive medicine, generally in a university framework. The special objectives of the IUMSP are to offer training in epidemiology and the prevention of chronic diseases, in the organization and evaluation of the health services and in the use of quantitative methods in public health and medicine.
• Research and development, i.e., activities creating new knowledge or new applications of available knowledge. The special objectives of the IUMSP are to carry out work in the fields of epidemiology and prevention of chronic deseases, organization and functioning of care services and quantitative methods.
• Services, i.e., activities applying available knowledge in public health and quantitative methods. As far as possible, the choice of service mandates is carried out to support or draw on priorities identified through research and development

Budget and financing

There are about 60-70 persons working at the IUMSP, 35% are physicians, 40% are other professionals (mainly statisticians, sociologists and economists), and 25% administrative employees. The Institute is financed by the Canton of Vaud for about 40% of the budget; the running income is generated from externally funded research and fee-for-service mandates.

Collaboration

The IUMSP is embarked in various collaborations with several partners. These include other departments of the University hospital and other faculties at the University of Lausanne, several Departments of public health at the cantonal (Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valai, Jura), as well at the federal levels (mainly Federal office of statistics, Federal office of public health, and Federal office of social insurance). International links include selected Governments (Seychelles) and international organisations like the World Bank, the World Health Organisations and UNAIDS.

Collaboration center of
  

Organization

The IUMSP is organized into nine Units or groups. The main tasks of each Unit are presented here, as well as a sample of recent publications. Other information on publication can be found on the web site.

Last update of this page: 25.05.2004