GHP researcher new executive director at Norwegian Insititute of Public Health
Trygve Ottersen, researcher and GHP member, has been appointed executive director of area five at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. This area includes the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services.
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Ottersen, who has been part of the research group since 2005, will start in his new position January 2017. Read a translation of the NIPH intranett press release below.
Trygve Ottersen has been appointed director of the new area at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) – until now entitled Area 5.
He is currently associate professor at the Institute of Health and Society at University of Oslo, while also having positions at NIPH, University of Bergen, and University of Ottawa. He has today met with the employees at the Knowledge Centre. He will start January 1, 2017.
- I am very much looking forward to this! This area will become even more important for the Norwegian health services in the years ahead. I hope to contribute to further progress in our work for ensuring as good health services, as good health, and as fair distribution as we possibly can with the resources we have, says Ottersen. He has a background in medicine as well as political philosophy and has a PhD in priority setting.
He has covered a lot of ground, despite his relatively young age: previously conducted research at Harvard and worked at the Haukeland University Hospital, for the Chatham House, the Priority-Setting Committee and the UN Special Envoy on Ebola, as well as with projects for the World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
- I am really pleased with this appointment, says Camilla Stoltenberg. - Trygve is obviously a capable and fearless professional. His experience and personality will become a valuable contribution to the Institute and the Institute’s management team, she says.
Trygve Ottersen has a broad range of research interests, including priority setting and health systems strengthening in Norway and low- and middle-income countries, global health security (including antimicrobial resistance and pandemic preparedness), development assistance, and evidence-based policy.
- I have worked with the normative framework for priority setting for several years, but good criteria are just part of what we need to make the Norwegian health services better. The many decision makers in the health services also need the knowledge that enables them to use the criteria in a good way, he says.