The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) (Norwegian: Folkehelseinstituttet; FHI) is a Norwegian government agency and research institute, and is Norway's national public health institute. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Health and Care Services. NIPH acts as a national competence institution in public health in a broad sense for governmental authorities, the health service, the judiciary, prosecuting authorities, politicians, the media and the general public, international organisations and foreign governments. The institute has around 1400 employees.The institute's main activities are health surveillance, research and prevention. The institute consists of research divisions for infection control and environmental health, mental and physical health, health data and digitalisation, and the Knowledge Centre for Public Health. From 2019 the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies also becomes part of NIPH. The institute has an extensive cooperation with the World Health Organization. Camilla Stoltenberg has served as Director-General of the institute since 2012.
Developmental immunotoxicology (DIT) is emerging as a critical area in regulatory toxicology, driven by the recognition that the developing immune system is particularly vulnerable to xenobiotic exposure. Disruptions occurring during fetal or early postnatal life may result in long-lasting alterations in immune competence, tolerance, and disease susceptibility. This review provides a comprehensive overview of immune system development, highlighting key developmental stages from embryogenesis to postnatal maturation and identifying windows of heightened immune system sensitivity to toxicants. By integrating mechanistic insights and methodological advances, this review aims to support the improvement and extension of DIT testing frameworks and the development of predictive tools for regulatory and research applications. Recent advances in New Approach Methodologies offer promising alternatives for modeling human immune ontogeny, while highlighting the challenge of ensuring adequate coverage of critical developmental mechanisms and windows of susceptibility relevant to immunotoxicity. The integration of physiological maps and multi-omics technologies enhances mechanistic understanding, while epidemiological associations between exposures and functional endpoints underscore the real-world relevance of DIT and can identify biomarkers to guide the further development of relevant and sensitive models. Despite these advances, challenges remain, including the scarcity of human reference data, the lack of standardized protocols, and the need for validated test batteries covering diverse mechanisms once the tests have been refined. Addressing these gaps is essential to support the regulatory uptake of DIT data and to advance predictive, mechanistically anchored, and ethically sound strategies for DIT testing.
BACKGROUND:The global prevalence of autism spectrum diagnosis (ASD) is increasing. Fetal and early-life exposure to trace elements has been associated with increased likelihood of ASD, but evidence regarding timing of exposure remains limited. AIM:This study investigates prenatal and early-life exposure to non-essential and essential elements, individually and as mixtures, in children with and without ASD, stratified by child sex. METHODS:The sample included 170 children from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), of whom 75 were clinically diagnosed with ASD and 95 were not. Elemental levels were measured in primary tooth dentine using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to investigate case-control differences in levels of pre-and postnatal non-essential and essential elements as well as their mixtures. RESULTS:Significant differences in lead (Pb) levels were observed between ASD case and control groups: The ASD male group had lower Pb levels from 15 to 11 weeks prenatally, while ASD female group had lower levels from birth to 4 weeks postnatally, compared to controls. Males with ASD had higher prenatal magnesium (Mg) and lower postnatal Mg levels, as well as lower prenatal lithium (Li) levels and higher postnatal Li levels compared to controls. Additionally, males with ASD had higher prenatal and lower postnatal essential element mixture levels than controls. DISCUSSION:These findings suggest that there may be differential patterns of exposure to non-essential and essential element levels during specific developmental windows in fetal and early postnatal life in children with and without ASD.
Introduction Although the rising worldwide incidence of thyroid cancer (TC) has been largely attributed to changes in diagnostic means, the full spectrum of contributing factors remains unknown. We present a comprehensive registry-based study evaluating the impact of occupational background on the risk of TC in the Nordic countries. Methods Data were from the Nordic Occupational Cancer (NOCCA) study from the Nordic countries from 1961 to 2005. Standardized incidence ratio (SIR) of TC in each occupational category was calculated using national incidence rates as reference. Results The NOCCA cohort includes 14.9 million people (7.5 million women (50.3%), 7.4 million men (49.7%)). In total, 23,241 TCs were recorded: 16,758 (71.9%) in women and 6483 in men. Increased SIRs were observed in female farmers (SIR 1.19; 95% CI 1.07-1.30) and male fishermen (1.32;1.06-1.62), military personnel (1.29; 0.99-1.66), and clerical workers (1.19; 1.05-1.35). Conclusion Our results suggest an association between certain occupational backgrounds and TC. These findings may help elucidate new risk factors for TC to enable targeted diagnosis and surveillance of individuals most at risk.
Do parents or childless adults have better mental health? The answer could vary by life phases, but past studies exploring the link between parenthood and mental health have not considered the entire life course. This study investigates the association between parenthood and mental health in an entire population and further looks at how parenthood interacts with factors such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status. We used comprehensive Norwegian register data covering the entire population aged 31–80 years old (N = 2,234,087) to explore the relationship between parenthood and mental health conditions from 2006 to 2019. We used logistic regression models for population-wide analyses and conditional logistic models for analyses of discordant same-sex sibling sets and monozygotic twin pairs. Parenthood was associated with a lower risk of mental disorders (OR 0.67, 95
To investigate mammographic features associated with high artificial intelligence (AI) risk scores as provided by two AI models applied to screening mammograms. This retrospective study included 130,031 screening mammograms from 42,371 women attending BreastScreen Norway, 2008–2018. Two AI models (A and B) developed for cancer detection on screening mammograms were applied. An informed radiological review was conducted for mammograms within the highest 5
