[citation needed] Camilla Stoltenberg served as director-general of the institute from 2012 to 2023, and Guri Rørtveit was appointed director general from 2024, for a period of six years.

[5][6] The predecessor to today's institute, Statens institutt for folkehelse (SIFF), was founded in 1929 following a donation of 1 million Norwegian kroner from the Rockefeller Foundation.

[citation needed] Initially, SIFF was responsible for providing vaccines and sera to the population and performing chemical analyses of water and food.

Some years later, SIFF implemented immunisation programmes, but for several decades the scope of the institute was restricted to infectious disease control.

[citation needed] The name changed from Statens institutt for folkehelse to Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt but the English name, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, remained the same.

FHI also took on responsibility for the prevention of injury and disease caused by behavioural factors such as smoking, abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs, physical inactivity, obesity and unprotected sex with unknown partners.

The institute hosts two WHO collaborating centres, several laboratories affiliated with the WHO and is responsible for Norway's participation in International Health Regulations processes.