ABSTRACT
In 2001, the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Social Affairs established the country’s first centre for Sami health research. It is hosted by the University of Tromsø, the northernmost university in Norway, but also based in Karasjok in Finnmark; thus, it is set in a region that for hundreds of years has been ethnically diverse and, in certain areas, predominantly Sami. The centre is an institutionalized manifestation of political and academic will to consider the interrelatedness of Sami-ness, sickness and health. Members of the Sami Medical Association (a physicians’ association), founded in the mid-1980s, played no small part in laying down the principles upon which the centre was to be based: first, it was to focus solely upon the Sami population; secondly, it was to produce new knowledge concerning the health and living conditions of the Sami; and, thirdly, it was to educate researchers in Sami medicine and public health. 1
