Brazil was one of the first countries in Latin America to institutionalize a National Environmental Policy in 1981, including the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process of economic activities with anticipated impacts on the environment. Today, EIA practice in Brazil comes with a number of limitations: it is constrained by its environmental advocacy role; application is strongly oriented ...

a group of public health leaders in Canada called for the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) to establish an ongoing open forum for systematic reflection on public health system(s) elements in Canada as part of its annual conference. This call recognized that health system(s) reform in the country requires systems thinking in public health. CPHA recognized this need and offered us the op...

Health impact assessment (HIA) seeks to expand evaluation of policy and programmes in all sectors, both private and public, to include their impact on population health. While the idea that the public's health is affected by a broad array of social and economic policies is not new and dates back well over two centuries, what is new is the notion-increasingly adopted by major health institutions...

Introduction The Bangkok Charter on Health Promotion in a Globalized World, adopted at the Sixth Global Conference on Health Promotion in August 2005 (http://www. who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/ 6gchp/bangkok_charter/en/), highlights the role of health impact assessment (HIA) as a key decision-making tool in development planning. HIA is a combination of procedures, methods and tools by whi...

Informal settlement upgrading is widely recognized for enhancing shelter and promoting economic development, yet its potential to improve health equity is usually overlooked. Almost one in seven people on the planet are expected to reside in urban informal settlements, or slums, by 2030. Slum upgrading is the process of delivering place-based environmental and social improvements to the urban p...

STUDY AIM The aim of this project is to identify from a range of sources the factors associated with the success of a health impact assessment (HIA) in integrating health considerations into the final decision and implementation of a planned policy, programme, or project. DESIGN Three methods were adopted: (a) a review of HIA case studies; (b) a review of commentaries, reviews and discussion ...