Institute of Public Health Zadar and World Health Day
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Institute of Public Health Zadar and World Health Day
Published on 07/04/2020 (last modified 11/04/2020)
April 7 of each year marks the celebration of World Health Day. The Institute of Public Health Zadar is one of the AdSWiM partners, committed to health for all and to the protection of the environment since 1944.
From its inception at the First Health Assembly in 1948 and since taking effect in 1950, the celebration of the World Health Day has aimed to create awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization. This year is focused on the work of nurses and midwives and all other health workers that are at the forefront of COVID-19 response - providing high quality, respectful treatment and care, leading community dialogue to address fears and questions and, in some instances, collecting data for clinical studies.
The IPHZ is a modern institution that performs public health activities in the area of Zadar County in Croatia with the aim of providing preventive health care while promoting the health of the population through primary and Consiliary specialist care and preventive measures. The institution covers organized health promotion, epidemiology, microbiology, public health, health ecology and environmental protection, school medicine, mental health care and addiction prevention and employs 123 staff members. The institution is financed by revenues from the state budget, based on contracts with the Croatian Health Insurance Institute and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia, revenues from the budgets of local self-government units and revenues generated from the market.
In view of its development, the Institute can rightly refer to 70 years of experience, of which 30 years of independent activity, as well as promising highly educated rejuvenated professional staff qualified to perform professional and scientific research activities in the field of public health.
The Department for Health Ecology and Environmental Protection that is involved in the project work directly monitors, analyses and evaluates the impact of the environment (water, sea, air, soil, noise) and food on the health status of the population, health safety: food, raw material, water for human consumption, water for recreation and physical therapy, and items of general use. The Department's activities are organized and run through six departments, comprising twenty-two laboratories and in the field work. The relocation to the new office space on the fourth floor of the Polyclinic has created incomparably better conditions for further development and advancement of the business, which will enable all users to provide better service in a more accessible manner.
Prof. Jadranka Šangulin, the head of the Department of Environment and the Sea and of the laboratories explains: “For the project, we examine and evaluate the composition and quality of wastewater, surface and groundwater, sea and sediment, the eco toxicological properties of wastewater, and the composition and quality of waste and we perform all the professional environmental work, “ and adds: “Thanks to ADSWIM funds we have purchased the Continuous Flow Analyser (CFA) for the measurements of nutrients in the seawater. In continuous flow analysis (CFA), a sample is injected into a flowing carrier solution passing rapidly through small-bore tubing. The CFA and discrete analyzers are used in environmental applications for measuring analytes like ammonia, chloride, nitrite, and phosphate, etc.”
Some historical data:
The Chemical and Bacteriological Laboratory of Zadar was opened 75 years ago and in 1945 the laboratory grew into a Sanitary-Epidemiological Station (SES). In 1948, SES moved into the Kolovare building and in 1952 it was united in partnership with the City and County Polyclinic. In 1955 it changed its name to the Hygienic-Epidemiological Service (HES). In 1963, the National Health Centre and the Zadar General Hospital teamed up with the Zadar Medical Centre. From 1974 to 1983, HES operated within the framework of the OOUR Primary Health Care, and in 1983 the OOUR was established for hygienic-epidemiological activity. In 1984, the OOUR for hygienic-epidemiological activity was separated from the Medical Centre and transformed into the RO Institute for Health Protection that operated as an independent legal entity with about 60 employees. In order to improve the needs of the population, the Institute for Health Protection got an active role in linking all parts of the health system in the Zadar area with the task of providing expert proposals and opinions and developing public health programs. Since 1994, according to the local law the Institute have been taken over by the County of Zadar. At the same time, the institution changed its name to the Public Health Institute Zadar, under which it operates today in the building at Kolovare in Zadar.
