Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, JIPMER

The Department of Preventive and Social Medicine (P&SM) is dedicated to achieving excellence in teaching and training, research and provision of health services to the community in coordination with the state health machinery. The department’s effort is to involve all stakeholders in providing comprehensive continuing community-based teaching, training and research for undergraduates and postgraduates, thereby providing community orientation to health experts of all cadres.

The Department of P&SM is housed in the JIPMER International School of Public Health (JISPH), a four-storied building with state-of-the-art learning resources and infrastructure that caters to the learning needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, MPH, PhD trainees and other allied courses like BSc (MLT), MSc (Nutrition), MSc (Nursing), etc. There is a museum with wide collection of study materials and specimens related to public health. The Department Library has a rich collection of resources that includes journals, books and completed theses.  

Vision : The department seeks to be a Centre of Excellence in community based training, public health research, and quality health care provision to underserved communities.

 Specific Objectives

1. To create a skilled cadre of medical professionals having expertise in application of the principles of Public Health, contributing meaningfully in formulating National Health Policies and Programmes through a systems approach for overall human development.
2. To standardize teaching and training methods for postgraduates in Community Medicine
3. To plan, conduct and publish research work targeting community needs and interventions through use of the most recent and innovative research tools.

Activities of the department of PSM

• State Monitoring Unit for ICDS: The department works in close coordination with Project offices of ICDS and the Department of Women and Child Development under the Puducherry state government for training and monitoring activities. We function as the state monitoring unit under National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), New Delhi, for monitoring of ICDS activities in Puducherry.
• Surveillance - The department acts as the nodal site for JIPMER under Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) including Surveillance of Influenza A, H1N1, vaccine preventable diseases, and other conditions. It is also involved in Monitoring of Pulse Polio Immunisation activities for National Polio Surveillance Program .
• Support to the State Government - The department is also involved in various planning activities of the State government eg. health programs, training of trainers, data monitoring, SOP formulation.
• Outreach Services: The department of PSM, JIPMER in collaboration with CMCHIS conducts around 12-15 health camps per year with 250 to 300 beneficiaries receiving speciality services in each camp. The camps are conducted both in Puducherry and in the neighbouring districts.
• Health Promotion Activities: The department organizes health awareness programs among all the sections of the community especially school and college student population and is currently engaged in projects on “Health Promoting Schools” and “Healthy Workplace” models.
• Outbreak Investigations: The department has rich experience in helping the national and state responses for providing various relief measures to natural calamities and epidemiological investigations for disease outbreaks. A few notable ones include, Tsunami Relief in Puducherry (2004), Anthrax outbreak in Tamil Nadu (2007), Cholera outbreak in Puducherry (2013), Flood Relief in Kerala (2018) and Covid Central Response Team (2020).
• COVID Related Activities: The Department of P&SM, along with the clinical departments, is playing a stellar role in response to COVID-19. Along with helping clinical teams in administration and data management in hospital, the department has helped the state government in formulation of SOPs, policies and setting up of surveillance system and data management while ensuring the availability of primary health care services through its rural and urban health centre. Main contributions include contact tracing, IDSP Reporting and coordination of COVID-19 Vaccination centre. In addition it also assists the Health care worker safety committee in Helpline, management, quarantine and containment activities within the campus.