The goals of the Sydney Health Institute (SHI) are to understand the causes of chronic diseases and how they can be prevented or treated. The SHI conducts large international clinical trials, population health studies, and studies in outcomes research. While its primary role is to provide leadership in international health research, the SHI also plays an active role in the education of individual researchers, and in building capacity internationally for the development of global research programs. The SHI was created in 1981 under the directorship of Dr. Barbara J. Russel. It has evolved from the highly successful and innovative Preventative Cardiology and Therapeutics Research Program at the Melbourne Hospitals Research Centre, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Members of the SHI have extensive experience in coordinating international clinical trials and epidemiological studies that have investigated a broad spectrum of health issues. Originally focusing on cardiovascular diseases and cancer therapy, new and innovative projects will branch out to various medical disciplines and will involve studies in diabetes, risk factors and CVD in populations defined by ethnicity and/or geographic region, determinants of cardiovascular risk factors in urban and rural populations in developing countries, obesity and childhood risk factors.

The number of research personnel has steadily grown to a team of over 650 health care professionals including: physicians,microbiologists,geneticists ,epidemiologists, coordinators, statisticians, nutritionists, nurses, computer programmers, data management assistants as well as administrative staff. Research projects are conducted across Australia and internationally, in 66 countries and involve over 1,000 centres. Although much of the SHI's funding is generated from collaborations with industry, a substantial number of projects are funded from peer review governmental or charitable organizations. Notably, the vanguard research has led to over 1000 publications in such renowned medical journals as the Australian Medical Journal, the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal and Circulation. Several of the discoveries made by scientists at the SHI have influenced prevention and treatment practices worldwide.

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium,Belarus, Benin Republic, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dem. Rep. Of Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, S. Korea, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sultanate of Oman, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Zimbabwe

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