Mikael Rostila, former head of the Department of Public Health Sciences and former director of CHESS, sees it as natural that this institution now also can offer education in public health sciences at bachelor’s level, as a complement to the existing education at advanced and postgraduate levels.

"By uniting as a department, I am convinced that there is the opportunity to develop and strengthen our profile - a social science perspective on public health," says Mikael Rostila.

“The department excels in research on inequality as well as research on alcohol, drugs and gambling. We also work on policy issues. Because of this, we can be an important complement to Karolinska Institutet's public health sciences institution, which mainly has a medical perspective," says Jenny Cisneros Örnberg, Deputy Head of the department and former director of SoRAD.

In August 2021, the department’s over 70 employees moved to the newly, purpose-built premises at Campus Albano, and now share premises with other departments that focus on public health.

The Department of Public Health Sciences was created on January 1st, 2018 when Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS) merged with Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs (SoRAD).

Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS) was formed in 2000 jointly by Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet, with financial support from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS).

In March 1998 the Swedish Council for Social Research (SFR) submitted a national research programme on inequalities in health to the Government, which included the proposal to establish a national network centre for research into health inequalities as a key component. In February 1999 the SFR invited Swedish universities to apply for funding for a network centre. One condition was that the university would match the SFR funding with an investment of its own of a similar magnitude. Research groups at the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University, led by Finn Diderichsen, Denny Vågerö and Ulf Lundberg, wrote a joint proposal. The joint proposal from Stockholm University (SU) and the Karolinska Institute (KI) was ranked first by the international experts, and a contract between SU, KI and SFR formally establishing CHESS was signed on 30 June 2000.

CHESS was formally setup from July 1st 2000, and started to operate in January 2001 when we moved to the office at Sveaplan, between the main campuses of Stockholm University and Karolinska institutet.

CHESS by Denny Vågerö (447 Kb)

The Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs (SoRAD) is a interdisciplinary research centre at Stockholm University. SoRAD was established in 1999 and was located at the Faculty of Social Sciences. The centre conducted research within the field of social alcohol- and drug research. No education was arranged by the centre.

Besides basic funding from the faculty SoRAD holds grants from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research. Primarily the Centre of excellence program "Exclusion and inclusion in the late welfare state: the case of alcohol and drugs" as well as the project "Women, health and substance use".