A public health agency with strong local roots and a track record of crisis management

In 2016, France decided to create a national agency serving as a reference and center of scientific expertise in public health, dedicated to the health of all and present throughout the country. Its missions: to monitor the health status of the population, identify risks, issue alerts, prevent, and respond to crises. The agency’s strength lies in bringing together multidisciplinary teams and partners who are closely attuned to local realities.

These missions have been put to the test by a decade of mounting challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most demanding health crisis of all. By mobilizing its regional teams, the Health Reserve, the Pharmaceutical Agency, its scientific partners, and its surveillance systems, the agency has risen to the challenge, innovated, and produced 150 health indicators available as open data to inform decision-makers and citizens in real time. A demonstration of what is possible when scientific expertise, local roots, and collective momentum come together. It is this ability to produce, share, and make reliable data accessible that has established the agency’s legitimacy and made action possible.

The passage of Cyclone Chido through Mayotte presented a multifaceted challenge, particularly in terms of logistics, human resources (mobilization of the agency’s reservists and epidemiologists), and the deployment of specific surveillance measures—unprecedented actions carried out in a particularly difficult context, further illustrating the agency’s commitment to serving the region. 

Innovation, Surveillance, and Prevention: Ten Years of Transformation

Producing scientific knowledge is not enough; it must be translated into action. This is the principle that underpins Santé publique France’s approach: producing robust, region-specific, and accessible data to support public policies and promote prevention efforts, then translating them into concrete measures that serve the public.

Over the past ten years, the agency’s surveillance capabilities have evolved significantly. The Sum’Eau system, which detects viral circulation in wastewater networks without relying on screening tests, was tested during the Paris Olympics for six pathogens. The Orchidée project provided near-real-time surveillance of severe forms of respiratory infections using hospital data repositories. The Odissé portal makes health indicators for 90 diseases available to the public as open data. These innovations, born from the work of the teams and their partners, strengthen the agency’s ability to issue earlier alerts and more effectively guide public policy decisions.

Prevention has followed the same trajectory. Nutri-Score, adopted in 7 European countries and used by 91% of the French population, and “Smoke-Free Month”—with 1.4 million registrations since 2016 and yielding a return of 7 euros in healthcare savings for every 1 euro invested—demonstrate the ability to develop initiatives with a tangible and measurable impact on behavior change. Information initiatives such as “1,000 First Days” or mental health campaigns follow the same logic: tools tailored to the populations least engaged with prevention, deployed in collaboration with local stakeholders.

Building the Public Health System of Tomorrow

What the agency has built over the past ten years—its tools, methods, networks, and partnerships—prepares it for the challenges ahead.

The “One Health ” (One Health) provides a framework for an integrated approach to human, animal, and environmental health, as illustrated, for example, by the surveillance and prevention of antibiotic resistance, the Albane and PestiRiv studies, as well as the SAGA (active surveillance of avian influenza) and SUM’EAU initiatives, in coordination with the relevant ministries and ANSES.

It reflects a conviction rooted in the agency’s strategy: major health threats (infectious disease outbreaks, impacts of climate change, environmental exposures) cannot be addressed in isolation. 

To address these challenges, the modernization of surveillance systems continues: early detection of weak signals, modeling of epidemic dynamics, and utilization of big data. Artificial intelligence, already underway through a partnership with Mistral and the internal Innovation Lab—an incubator for innovative ideas and projects launched with about 100 employees—contributes to this effort.

In a world facing significant health pressures, Santé publique France will continue to build a robust public health system in collaboration with all its partners in France and internationally, serving the needs of all populations.