Kjell Bjartveit, MD, MPH

Born: 1927

Kjell Bjartveit has been the leader and “driving force” of the Cardiovascular Disease Study in Norwegian Counties, a pioneering study based on mobile screening units deriving from the wartime screening program for chest disease. This study aimed at identification of men and women at high risk of cardiovascular disease, giving preventive advice in primary health care and a follow-up. It was launched in 1974-76 in Finnmark in northern Norway and in Sogn and Fjordane and Oppland in southern Norway, later extended to all Norwegian counties, and continued until 2003.

Bjartveit graduated from the University of Oslo as a MD in 1951, then became a specialist in lung diseases with a Diploma in Public Health from the University of Toronto in 1962 and a DMedSc degree at the University of Oslo in 1984. He was Senior Officer of the Norwegian Mass Radiography Service (later National Health Screening Service) from 1959-63 and Director of this institution from 1963 until retirement in 1991.

Bjartveit has been a leader against tobacco smoking, not only in Norway but internationally, and a key person in the Norwegian Committee work leading to the Tobacco Act passed by the Parliament in 1973. He was Raporteur of the WHO Expert Committee on Smoking Control in 1978 and has been Temporary Adviser to the WHO on Tobacco and Health since then as well as President of the Governing Council of the International Non-Governmental Coalition Against Tobacco. (HB)