[Brief history of creation and activities of Research Institute of Hygiene and Health Protection of Children and Adolescents State Institution Research Centre of Children's Health Protection, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences].
The Institute was founded to study effects of environmental factors on the health status and day-to-day activities of children and adolescents in organized groups and to use the data obtained for the elaboration of measures for the protection and promotion of their health. The Institute is up to now the sole research institution of this kind in the Russian Federation entitled to coordinate problem-solving efforts on a national scale. Since 2000, it has been functioning as the National Centre for support of the European network of health promoting schools. The Institute developed a concept of research designed to resolve topical problems facing hygienic science and practical health service; it implicates elaboration of hygienic norms and regulations taking into account age, sex, health status, and the level of mental and physical development of individual children. The main lines of research carried out at the Institute are listed with special reference to the theoretical aspects of such cardinal problems of child hygiene as adaptation, hygienic regulation and standardization, etc. The Institute participated in the development of a new basic curriculum and the state education standard law. The authors present results of multidisciplinary research and developments obtained at the Institute. Specialists of the Institute are involved in the work of international scientific societies.