Health impact assessment in planning: Development of the design for health HIA tools

a r t i c l e i n f o How can planners more systematically incorporate health concerns into practical planning processes? This paper describes a suite of health impact assessment tools (HIAs) developed specifically for planning practice. Taking an evidence-based approach the tools are designed to fit into existing planning activities. The tools include: a short audit tool, the Preliminary Checklist; a structured participatory workshop, the Rapid HIA; an intermediate health impact assessment, the Threshold Analysis; and a set of Plan Review Checklists. This description provides a basis for future work including assessing tool validity, refining specific tools, and creating alternatives. 1.1. The need for planning-specific health impact assessment tools Recently planners have been attempting to foster connections with public health professionals and improve health through planning actions. As issues such as obesity, asthma, noxious pollutants, and mental health concerns have grown in prominence, there is increasing interest in the potential for changes in the built environment to alleviate such problems. The two fields, public health and planning the built environment, share similar roots in the nineteenth and early twentieth century reform movements. Only quite recently, however, has research emerged to fully acknowledge their many important connections. Unprecedented sources of research funding have helped better bridge the planning and health disciplines. However, city planners lack tools to systematically incorporate health concerns into their work in a way that acknowledges the depth of health research and the needs of practical planning (Burns and Bond, 2008; Higgins et al., 2005). Practical planning work needs simple processes that only minimally add to the workload of already busy professionals. Specially-designed tools can provide a structured format for clearly identifying potential health problems that can be avoided or ameliorated as well as health benefits that can be enhanced. This paper responds to this need by introducing and describing a suite of health impact assessment tools (HIAs) tailored to urban planning practice. Health impact assessments emerged in the 1980s and involve measures, procedures, and tools for assessing the health effects of a policy, program, or project (WHO, 1999; 4; Kemm et al., 2004). The tools presented in this paper take an evidence-based approach that draws closely on research addressing the relationship between health and the built environment. We describe where the tools fit in the landscape of health impact assessment, how they were developed and refined through pilot testing in practical settings, and provide …