Jenny Cisneros Örnberg and Mikael Rostila at the Department of Public Health Sciences. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad
Jenny Cisneros Örnberg and Mikael Rostila at the Department of Public Health Sciences. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad


Stockholm University already conducts extensive, social-science based research on public health. The Centre for Health Equities Studies (CHESS) and the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs (SoRAD) are two of the leading institutes.

Broad research field on public health

The department comprises a wide field of research on public health. SoRAD’s research has been focused on alcohol, drugs and gambling. Research at CHESS has examined how social factors as well as societal structures and processes contribute to ill health and disease. Both have also received major, competitive funding from the leading research financiers in the field.

“The new institution offers an opportunity to bring together some of the strengths that Stockholm University has in public health science and to link it to bachelor’s level education and the possibility of expanding existing doctoral education,” says Astri Muren, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Humanities and Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Social science perspective on public health

Mikael Rostila, head of the new institution and former director of CHESS, sees it as natural that the new institution can now also offer education in public health science at the bachelor’s level as a complement to existing education at the 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 Department and former director of SoRAD.

Move to Albano in two years

In the first few years, the department’s over 60 employees will remain in the current location at Sveaplan. In the autumn of 2020 they will move to the newly, purpose-built premises at Albano. There they will share the premises with other departments that focus on public health.