BACKGROUND While many guidelines explain how to conduct Health Impact Assessments (HIAs), less is known about the factors that determine the extent to which HIAs affect health considerations in the decision making process. We investigated which factors are associated with increased or reduced effectiveness of HIAs in changing decisions and in the implementation of policies, programs or projects...

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool intended to present timely, evidence-based recommendations to decision makers in all sections of society in order to accentuate potential positive health and well-being impacts (and mitigate potential negative impacts) of policies, plans (including local and neighbourhood plans), programmes and projects (including infrastructure and loca...

Decreasing traffic speeds increases the amount of time drivers have to react to road hazards, potentially averting collisions, and makes crashes that do happen less severe. Boston's regional planning agency, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), conducted a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) that examined the potenti...

CONTEXT A growing number of children reside with methamphetamine-abusing parents in homes where the illicit drug is produced. Yet, the effects of a methamphetamine environment on psychological child outcome are still unknown. PURPOSE To examine whether preschoolers who lived in methamphetamine-producing homes are at increased risk for developing psychological problems. METHODS The participa...

This paper presents a detailed description of an approach designed to investigate the application of the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) framework to assess the potential health impacts of climate change. A HIA framework has been combined with key climate change terminology and concepts. The fundamental premise of this framework is an understanding of the interactions between people, the environ...

Health impact assessment (HIA) has its origins in environmental impact assessment methodology. New Zealand's approach to health impact assessment is consistent with other countries. During the 1990s, legislation that related to the management of natural and physical resources provided the basis for public health engagement in impact assessment. In the mid 1990s, the Public Health Commission rel...

OBJECTIVES This study uses critical realist methodology to identify the essential and contingent elements of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and Healthy Public Policy (HPP) as operationalised by practitioners. DESIGN Data collection-qualitative interviews and a workshop were conducted with HIA and HPP practitioners working in differing contexts. DATA ANALYSIS Critical realist analytical ques...

The purpose of this research was to develop tools applicable to the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Thai context. The relevant documents and articles were extensively reviewed, analyzed, and drafted. The first draft was presented to a research advisory committee for their review, and the recommended changes were subsequently made. The second draft wa...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been a strong and persistent voice calling for the recognition of the role of health in development and of the impact of socio-economic development on health. Health impact assessment (HIA) is one mechanism that can be used to achieve this goal. The objective of this paper is to describe HIA practice in the WHO European Healthy Cities Network and present ...

The World Health Organization has promoted health impact assessment (HIA) for over 20 years. At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), HIA was discussed as a critical method for linking health to "green economy" and "institutional framework" strategies for sustainable development. In countries having a high human development index (HDI), HIA has been added to th...