Established with the aid of
Rockefeller Foundation, AIIH&PH was inaugurated by
Sir John Anderson, the
Governor of Bengal on 30 December 1932. The AIIH&PH was a constituent college of the
University of Calcutta. Since its inception, the college has collaborated with the
Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine. In 1953, the institute was accredited by WHO and UNICEF as an International Training Centre. The institute carried out the first village health survey in India in 1944–1945, in which a general health survey of nearly 1200 families comprising 7000 members in West Bengal was done. After independence, extension plans were drawn in 1950, at a cost of 90 lakhs, shared equally by Union Health Ministry and
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, to build a Child and Maternity Health section at the institute. In 1995, a public health scientist Dr. Smarajit Jana of AIIH&PH for
Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, sex worker's organisation which works for prevention of HIV/AIDS amongst its 65,000 sex workers. In 2004, the AIIH&PH became affiliated to the newly formed
West Bengal University of Health Sciences (WBUHS). In March 2023
Government planning to revive The institute, transforming it into a world-class 'School of Public Health' also plans to convert it into a
Deemed university/Deemed Public Health University. ==Departments==