Equity and the consideration of the differential impacts of public policy within populations are core values of health impact assessment. A recent paper setting out the results of the government’s consultation exercise on tackling health inequalities argues for health impact assessment to be used as a mechanism to bring about reductions in health inequalities. However, we would contend that mos...

Health impact assessment (HIA), a systematic assessment of potential health impacts of proposed public polices, programs, and projects, offers a means to advance population health by bringing public health research to bear on questions of public policy. The United States has been slow to adopt HIA, but considerable strides have been made in many other countries, and under the auspices of the Wo...

The concept, techniques, and applications of health impact assessment (HIA) hold promise to raise the profi le of health within the overall project, policy and programme planning, and assessment cycle. HIA in the public sector has progressed over the past two decades with a strong Eurocentric focus on transportation and social programmes and policies. In 1999, the publication of the Gothenburg ...

OBJECTIVE To influence the planning of the 2014 Commonwealth Games such that the positive impacts are maximized and the negative impacts are mitigated. STUDY DESIGN Participatory health impact assessment (HIA). METHODS A participatory HIA was performed using standard World Health Organization methods. A scoping event was held to involve decision makers in the process and to identify the key...

European Union (EU) Member States are interested in using health impact assessment (HIA) as a means of safeguarding their obligations to protect human health under the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam. However, several have encountered difficulties institutionalizing HIA with the policy-making process. As a consequence, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe has suggested coupli...

The importance to public health of environmental decisions-including those about land use, transportation, power generation, agriculture, and environmental regulation-is increasingly well documented. Yet many decision makers in fields not traditionally focused on health continue to pay little if any attention to the important health effects of their work. This article examines the emerging prac...

Health impact assessment (HIA) is both an effective tool for promoting healthy public policies and one that has the potential to help hold accountable for their actions those who create unhealthy public policies. This article identifies some of the issues that arise in considering the application of HIA to the operation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), especially in the context of sub-...

BACKGROUND Consideration of health impacts of non-health sector policies has been encouraged in many countries, with health impact assessment (HIA) increasingly used worldwide for this purpose. HIA aims to assess the potential impacts of a proposal and make recommendations to improve the potential health outcomes and minimize inequalities. Although many of the same techniques can be used, such ...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Health impact assessment (HIA) offer a very logical and interesting approach for those aiming to integrate health issues into planning processes. With a lot of works and plans waiting to be done (e.g., developing and updating plans, counseling planning commissions, cooperation with other organizations), planners find it difficult to prioritize health among a variety of po...

Health is greatly influenced by social, economic and political determinants. Accordingly, decisions influencing people‘s health do not concern only health services or ‘health policies’, but decisions in many different policy areas have their influence on these health determinants. Health Impact assessment (HIA) is a predictive tool to support decisions in policy-making. The ultimate goal of thi...