Center for Public Health

The Medical University of Vienna is the largest medical school in the world. With its history, its size and its excellent scientific performance it is among the most important and renowned medical universities in the world. Thanks to the triple track of education, research and patient care research results and their practical application are directly integrated into the teaching.

The Center for Public Health is devoted to the influence of health and sickness on society, as well as developing measures for prevention, health promotion, improved medical care and check of environmental conditions.

In addition, bio-medical findings were mixed with statistical methods to compile data of the population relevant to health, and to detect current and historical influences.

Based on biomedical findings and as a logical extension to them, quantitative methods, such as those used in epidemiology and biostatistics, and also qualitative methods from social and cultural sciences, are applied to collect health-related data, to explore present-day and historical societal and environmental influences on health and illness, to analyze their significance for the entire population and to develop population-based measures for prevention, health promotion, improved medical care, changing behaviors and controlling environmental conditions.

The aim of the Center for Public Health at the Medical University is therefore to improve the physical and mental well-being of the population by means of health-related initiatives in research, development, education and public information and by advising national and international committees. Research in the area of Public Health lays the necessary scientific foundations for achieving these aims.

MedUni Vienna's Center for Public Health comprises three institutes and three divisions: the Division of General and Family Medicine, the Division of Epidemiology, the Division of Health Economics and the Institute for Medical Psychology, Social Medicine and Environmental Hygiene.