The Andrija Štampar School of Public Health (SPH) was founded in 1927, and today it is a scientific and teaching branch of the University of Zagreb School of Medicine that organizes, conducts, and promotes teaching at undergraduate and graduate university studies of medicine and nursing and postgraduate specialist and PhD. The SPH carries out scientific and professional activities and various forms of professional and scientific training of employees in research, health and other institutions, primarily in the field of public health. The mission of the Andrija Štampar School of Public Health is to develop top-tier experts, methods, and standards in the field of public health, with the aim of raising the level of public health.
The SPH scientifically and professionally supports the planning, development, and evaluation of public health programmes and policies in both the governmental and non-governmental sectors. International cooperation has been inherent to the Andrija Štampar School of Public Health since its establishment. For years, the SPH has organized international health planning and management programmes for developing countries, and today it runs international education and research programmes in its field of work.
The WHO Collaborating Centre for HIV Strategic Information is operating at the SPH. The WHO collaborating centre title is awarded to a department of an institution as a recognition for active cooperation on programmes, which is an additional contribution to its international recognition. Their status must be justified and confirmed every four years.
An important organizational unit of the Andrija Štampar School of Public Health is the Department for Educational Technology established in 1986 on the experiences of a collaborative project of the Republic of Croatia and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) entitled Continuous Training for Primary Health Care with the Aid of Computer and Video Technology. The Department is a research and professional unit with the aim of developing, improving, and continuously monitoring educational technologies in the field of health sciences and medicine. Educational technology does not only entail the technology but also the method of using the technology, i.e., it is about educational technology that starts from innovative approaches in education to evaluating the application of new educational strategies and methods. The tasks of the Department are: (a) monitoring of the development of educational technology in the world and in Croatia, and applying and evaluating of technology, (b) implementation of continuous education and support for teaching, (c) technical support in the teaching process, in particular creation of audio-visual teaching materials, (d) dissemination of scientific information and health education, and (e) scientific research (basic, developmental, and applied) in the field of education, medical decision-making, expert systems, and educational psychology. The Department encouraged the establishment of the Croatian Society for Medical Education.
The employees of the Andrija Štampar School of Public Health are active in the development and reform of the health system in Central and Southeast Europe. One of the results of these activities is the analysis of positive and negative experiences of numerous reforms of health systems in this part of Europe in the last twenty years with the aim of defining possible further research and changes. The results were published in 2012 in the publication Health Reforms in South-East Europe in cooperation with the SPH, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and the Research School for Economics and Political Sciences (SEE – LSE Research on South Eastern Europe).
The SPH is a headquarter for associations that contribute to the development of outpatient protection and public health, and are led by the employees of the school. These are: Association of Teachers of General/Family medicine, Croatian Association of Family Medicine, Croatian Association of Balint Groups, Croatian Society for Medical Education, Croatian Society for Medical Informatics, Croatian Biometric Society, Croatian Network of Healthy Cities, Say YES to Non-smoking and Andrija Štampar Association of Public Health.
The Andrija Štampar Library is located in the building of the Andrija Štampar School of Public Health. It is open to all users regardless of their status. The Library also performs the function of the library of the Croatian Institute of Public Health. The library area consists of a computer reading room with 20 computers and two student classrooms, one of which is intended for group seminar work with the possibility of using additional computers. The Library is connected to an integrated Aleph system used by most libraries of the University of Zagreb. Through the Aleph system, the users have access to the library's online catalogue. The users also have the possibility to use computers (via their AAI©EduHr account) whose IP address provides access to all relevant databases and journals in the field of biomedicine and health sciences funded by the Ministry of Science and Education. The Library is the Documentation Centre of the World Health Organization for the Republic of Croatia, and since 1993 its depository library.