About the Public Health Strategy
This five year strategy is for Public Health in the HSE, and incorporates the vision, mission, values and priorities of the Public Health function in measurably improving population health outcomes over the next five years.
It provides a clear and cohesive direction for the Public Health workforce and is engineered to drive through and realise the full potential the recent public reform process, thereby ensuring our efforts translate into tangible and sustained improvement in population health while enhancing overall productivity and operational strength.
Our vision is for the best possible health and wellbeing for everyone in Ireland.
Our mission is to increase physical, mental and social wellbeing across the life course, protect health, prevent disease, build healthy communities, address health inequalities and achieve health equity; drive and harness innovation; improve health services and provide a high quality Public health service. We do this by leading in partnership with individuals and communities to support and enable everyone in Ireland to have the best start in live and to live longer, healthier lives.
The strategy sets out six priority areas for Public Health over the next five years as we work to achieve our vision of delivering the best possible health and wellbeing for our population:
- Advance Health Intelligence: Leverage health information, evidence, research and innovation for better health.
- Delivery high-quality Public Health: Deliver a high-quality and integrated Public Health function.
- Protect our population: Protect the population from all health threats.
- Improve health equity: Reduce health inequalities across all stages of life.
- Address the determinants of health: Strengthen action on the wider determinants of health.
- Strengthen health services: Strengthen health services to address population needs, emphasising prevention and early intervention.
We also endeavour to embed our core values, including the established HSE values of care, compassion, trust and learning, along with equity, effective communication and striving for excellence in all that we do.
The development of this strategy was a collaborative effort with input from a wide range of stakeholders through workshops, surveys and an online consultation process. We acknowledge the work of the Expert Advisory Group, Steering Group, the many stakeholders that supported this process and in particular those in Public Health whose expertise, dedication and commitment is embedded within the strategy’s key priorities and objectives:
- Information on the Steering Group membership is available here.
- Information on the Expert Advisory Group membership is available here.
- Our latest newsletter is available here.
Contact us
You can contact the project team by email to phstrategy@hse.ie
Page last updated on 24/11/2025
