Haraldur Briem, Chief Epidemiologist and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland, and chair of the study board in Public Health Sciences, received the Nordic Public Health Prize in June. The prize was awarded at a special ceremony during the annual meeting of Nordic Health and Welfare Ministers in Norway. The prize amounts to 50 thousand Swedish Crowns and a diploma.

It is the Nordic School of Public Health and the Nordic Council of Ministers award the prize to individuals, organizations or institutions that have contributed significantly to improve public health in the Nordic countires.

It says in the selection committee’s rationale that Haraldur Briem is worthy of the prize as he has contributed greatly with his academic knowledge and ambition to Communicable Disease Control in Iceland in addition to being a dynamic advocate in Nordic collaboration in the field. Furthermore, the prize is for important research in the spreading of communicable diseases and the battle against immunity to anti-biotics.

Moreover, the rationale states that Dr. Briem was one of the organizers of Master Studies in Public Health Sciences at the University of Iceland, which has been on offer for the past five years; since 2007. Dr. Briem is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland and chair of the study board in Public Health Sciences. The department collaborates with some of the leading research institutes in the world, such as Harvard School of Public Health in the United States and Karolinska-institutet in Sweden.

Photo: Haraldur Briem accepts the acknowledgement from Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen, the Norwegian Minister of Health.