Current thinking and issues in the development of health impact assessment in Australia.

• ensuring that government health policies improve the position of disadvantaged people; • assessing the differential impact of health policies across the whole population; • identifying potential impacts of health policies on specific groups within a population. Despite there being no agreement on the significance of this process—and the process still needs to be evaluated— HIA is being extensively trialled in many other countries as a way of informing the policy-making processes of government. This article describes some of the discussion around these three applications of HIA. It draws on the findings of a recently-completed study for the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing on the potential application of HIA to population health and to the reduction of health inequalities in Australia.