Health impact assessment (HIA) has many advocates for its use to identify and optimize the health effects of non-healthcare interventions. It is an assessment of the health effects, positive and negative, of a project, programme, or policy. Expertise developed in the United Kingdom from a realization that health impacts are often overlooked during the planning stages of development projects but...

Correctional agencies face increasing pressure to provide more services for increasing caseloads with fewer resources. The Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) is a risk/need assessment instrument that was designed to assist correctional agencies in classifying offenders based upon risk of re-offending, thereby allowing agencies to assign appropriate levels of risk/need and develop interv...

There seems to be a general agreement amongst practitioners of economic evaluations, including Health Technology Assessment, that the explicit statement of a perspective is a necessary element in designing and reporting research. Moreover, there seems also to be a general presumption that the ideal perspective is “societal”. In this paper we endorse the first principle but dissent from the seco...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to describe the Norwegian contribution to the broad picture of our international health technology assessment (HTA) history. METHODS A general examination of some pre-HTA activities, as consensus conferences, closer reading of all background papers to the establishment of an HTA agency in Norway, the ongoing activities of this agency, its evaluation, and i...

OBJECTIVE To analyze work organization in psychosocial healthcare services from the logic of the service management field. METHODS Organizational analysis was performed, using a case study in a psychosocial healthcare service located in the city of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, between 2006 and 2007. A total of five sources of information were analyzed: Ministério da Saúde (Brazilian Minist...

People with mental health problems have a range of health and social care needs that result in both illness and disability (effects of the illness on social functioning and citizenship). If service development is to be creative and innovative, needs assessment has to focus on the identification of actual need--rather than using the existing services as the basis of planning. To be valid, needs ...

UNLABELLED This article provides examples of adverse health effects, including weather-related injury, food insecurity, mental health issues, and water infrastructure damage, and the responses to these effects that are currently being applied in two Northwest Alaska communities. BACKGROUND In Northwest Alaska, warming is resulting in a broad range of unusual weather and environmental conditio...

OBJECTIVES To provide an overview of the development of health technology assessment (HTA) in Germany since the 1990s. METHODS Analysis of key documents (e.g. literature, laws, and other official documentation) and personal experiences. RESULTS Health technology assessment (HTA) entered the political agenda in Germany only in the mid-1990s, basically as the result of a top-down approach tow...

ISSUE ADDRESSED There is a need for a system of values and principles consistent with modern health promotion that enables practitioners to use these values and principles to understand health and in their needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation practice. METHOD Grounded theory, document analysis and the authors' own practice experience were used to systematically collect an...

Fifteen area health services currently have formal structures for ongoing community participation. These structures are variously called health councils, health consumer networks, consumer and community health forums, and consultative committees. The role and activities undertaken vary and include local needs assessment, input to planning, and health promotion activities. The two area health se...