Health impact assessment (HIA) has been advanced as a means of bringing potential health impacts to the attention of policy makers, particularly in sectors where health impacts may not otherwise be considered. This article examines lessons for HIA in the United States from the related and relatively well-developed field of environmental impact assessment (EIA). We reviewed the EIA literature an...

Health impact assessment (HIA) can ensure that health is a core element of sustainable urban planning. Based on the experience of the NSW HIA Project, we discuss the current strengths of HIA and challenges facing it as an urban sustainability tool across five areas: the use of evidence; integrating HIA with environmental impact assessments; including consideration of equity; recognising wider d...

für Naturforschung in cooperation with the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Dieses Werk wurde im Jahr 2013 vom Verlag Zeitschrift für Naturforschung in Zusammenarbeit mit der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. digitalisiert und unter folgender Lizenz veröffentlicht: Creative Commons Namen...

Over the past several decades, obesity has grown into a major global epidemic. In the United States (US), more than two-thirds of adults are now overweight and one-third is obese. In this article, we provide an overview of the state of research on the likely economic impact of the US obesity epidemic at the national level. Research to date has identified at least four major categories of econom...

The experience of health impact assessment (HIA) in NSW has shown that it is possible to incorporate considerations of health impacts into decision-making concerning urban planning. In NSW, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 is the regulatory framework governing urban planning. This legislative system provides opportunities for HIA and the consideration of health impacts as part...

A situation analysis was undertaken to assess impediments to health impact assessment (HIA) in the South-East Asia Region of WHO (SEARO). The countries of the region were assessed on the policy framework and procedures for HIA, existing infrastructure required to support HIA, the capacity for undertaking HIA, and the potential for intersectoral collaboration. The findings show that environmenta...

The determinants of health are those factors that have the potential to affect health, either positively or negatively, and include a range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors. In the practice of health impact assessment (HIA), the stage at which the determinants of health are considered for inclusion is during the scoping step. The scoping step is intended to identify how ...

The nine health impact assessment (HIA) case studies in this issue represent a considerable contribution to the HIA literature and provide a number of lessons. These lessons include the value of using evidence in HIA to aid decision-making; the various forms that stakeholder and community involvement in HIA can take; and the fact that HIA can act as a catalyst for intersectoral engagement. They...