Strategies for institutionalizing HIA

All rights in this document are reserved by the WHO Regional Office for Europe. The document may nevertheless be freely reviewed, abstracted, reproduced or translated into any other language (but not for sale or for use in conjunction with commercial purposes) provided that full acknowledgement is given to the source. For the use of the WHO emblem, permission must be sought from the WHO Regional Office. Any translation should include the words: The translator of this document is responsible for the accuracy of the translation. The Regional Office would appreciate receiving three copies of any translation. Any views expressed by named authors are solely the responsibility of those authors. There is now clear recognition that policies in many social and economic sectors influence the underlying factors leading to poor health and to the unacceptable and growing inequalities in health observed across Europe. The World Health Organization (WHO), through its health for all policy, and the European Union (EU), through its new strategy for public health, have highlighted the need to create partnerships across sectors in order to deal with this situation. One way of creating synergy, so that policies and programmes in different sectors add value to each other and avoid damage to health, is through the process of health impact assessment (HIA). A number of countries, at both the national and the local level, are already trying to implement the HIA concept. There are ethical, political and complex process and technical issues to be addressed regarding when, by whom and how HIA should be carried out. It will not be possible for countries to examine the potential health impact of every proposed policy, programme and project, nor will it be necessary to carry out an in-depth HIA in all cases. Nevertheless, rapid health impact appraisals must be credible if they are to be effective in influencing policy development. New information, processes, training and financial resources must be quickly put in place if HIA is to be regularly implemented in countries. To speed this process, WHO's European Centre for Health Policy (ECHP) has established this series of HIA discussion papers. These papers are intended to encourage the sharing of information and ideas and to promote further thinking on the options for implementing an HIA approach in Europe. Although responsibility for their content remains that of their authors, before being included in this series they are sent for comments to an …