The need for strategic health assessment.

and today would produce nearly 200 HIA reports. A good HIA report is unlikely to be accepted by a peer reviewed journal and an accepted paper would almost certainly have to omit half the material that a good HIA report should contain. None the less, the HIA community should pay a great deal of attention to Thomson’s critique. A more balanced summary of the state of HIA would have been ‘has made worthwhile progress – must try harder’. John Kemm, West Midlands Public Health Observatory, Birmingham, England, UK Correspondence: e-mail: [email protected]