Unit of Public Health

Public health is a comparatively young science. The concept of public health dates back to the 19th century, but as a science it has been established since the beginning of the 20th century. It was firstly  called social hygiene. In 1903, Dr. Grotian was working in Germany and founded the magazine "Social Hygiene". In 1905, the Scientific Society for Social Hygiene and Medical Statistics was founded in Berlin, Germany. In 1912 a qualification course in social hygiene was established in Berlin. In 1920, the Department of Social Hygiene was opened at the University of Berlin.

The fact that Georgia is a European country is also confirmed by the fact that in 1919, following in the footsteps of the leading European universities, under the leadership of Prof. Simon Amirejibi, the Department of Bacteriology and then the Department of General Hygiene (1920) were established at the TSU Faculty of Medicine. With his support, the Department of Microbiology was established at the Faculty of Agronomy of Tbilisi State University (1919). The first Georgian textbook of medical microbiology was published by S. Amirejibi.

 Later, in 1926, the Department of Social Hygiene was established at the Faculty of Medicine at TSU, the first head of which was Professor Ivane Eliashvili. Prof. I. Eliashvili was a famous hygienist and healthcare organizer. He worked as the head of the statistics department at the People's Commissariat of Health. In the 1930s, the subject of "social hygiene" was considered non-Marxist because the authors of the communist ideology believed that social factors could not affect human health, did not recognize the influence of genetic and psychological factors on human health. Due to this, the department was renamed as the Department of Health Organization.  After Prof. Ivane Eliashvili, the Department of Social Hygiene at the TSU Faculty of Medicine was headed by Prof. Giorgi Eliava, from 1927 Giorgi Eliava headed the Department of Hygiene at TSU, and from 1929 the Department of Microbiology. In the 1929-1930 academic year of the last century, the Faculty of Medicine was separated from the University and the Tbilisi State Medical Institute was established.

 In 1995 Higher medical education at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, renewed in the field of medicine at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine. Faculty of Medicine as an independent structural unit, at Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University exists since 2000. At the same time, the Unit of Public Health was opened, the first head of which was the late Ramaz Urushadze. Currently, the public health Unit is headed by the Prof. Paata Imnadze.

The Unit of Public Health consists of 2 Departments:

• Department of Public Health and Epidemiology
• Department of Medical Ethics

The Unit of Public Health and its academic staff are engaged in fruitful pedagogical and scientific work: work continues within the framework of various international projects, masters and doctoral students are trained, a number of scientific papers have been prepared on the basis of scientific research and published in top-rated journals.