For over 30 years, Dr Pál Weihe has led the Department of Occupational Medicine and Public Health in the Faroe Islands and, for part of this period, as Medical Director of the Faroese Hospital System. He also is an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Faroe Islands, a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a Visiting Scientist at the Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark. Between 2005 and 2016, Dr Weihe served as Chair of the Faroese Board of Public Health.
Dr Weihe is deeply committed to serving his community through the provision of medical care and devotion to his work on minimizing community exposures to marine contaminants. Specifically, he has overseen the examinations of over 3,000 Faroe Islanders of five prospective studies of birth cohorts exposed to marine contaminants associated with neurotoxicity, growth, and development, immunotoxicity, and endocrine disruption. He is also involved in other research areas such as reproductive toxicological studies of time to pregnancy and semen quality as well as age-related functional deficits and degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and cardiovascular diseases, concerning lifetime exposure to methylmercury and persistent lipophilic contaminants.
Dr Weihe has served as a consultant for the Faroese Maritime Administration since 1988, with special responsibility for the conduction of the health certificates for seafarers. He has been active in research of the working environment on fishing vessels, including accidents and fatigue.
Dr Weihe has published more than 150 scientific papers in per reviewed scientific journals and books and been invited to more than 120 conferences and lectures.