While health impact assessment (HIA) has typically been applied to projects, plans or policies, it has significant potential with regard to strategic considerations of major health issues facing society such as climate change. Given the complexity of climate change, assessing health impacts presents new challenges that may require different approaches compared to traditional applications of HIA...

BACKGROUND Intersectoral Action for Health (IAH) and its Health Impact Assessment (HIA) tool are built on collaboration between actors and sectors, requiring multidimensional and horizontal way of working. The study aims to analyse the enablers and barriers when such a new way of working and tool have been initiated to replace a traditional, vertical operation at the local level in Slovakia-a c...

Health impact assessments (HIAs) across the globe may be used by governments and industries to secure approval for unconventional gas extraction developments. HIA is an umbrella term that covers an array of health review and assessment practices, ranging from the very general to quite specific and technical health studies. Our concern in this paper is principally with the specialist end of the ...

BACKGROUND In Quebec (Canada), the Monteregie Regional Public Health Department has chosen to use health impact assessment (HIA) to support municipalities through a knowledge exchange and collaborative process in order to positively influence decision-making regarding local policies and projects. The value of HIA is becoming increasingly recognized by municipalities interested in planning and m...

Background According to the general health policies issued in 2014, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) or Health Annex should be implemented in Iran. The present study provided a model for executing HIA in the Iranian context as a developing country. Methods This is a system design study with the qualitative approach. The data on the system components were gathered via reviews of the literature, ...

National and international pressure is growing for public policies and programmes to be prospectively evaluated to determine what their impacts will be on public health. This is evident from statements from bodies including the WHO, 1 the European Union, 2 and the British Medical Association 3 and may be seen as a natural development of evidence-based principles that are currently being applied...

BACKGROUND Transport and its links to health and health inequalities suggest that it is important to assess both the direct and unintended indirect health and related impacts of transport initiatives and policies. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) provides a framework to assess the possible health impacts of interventions such as transport. Policymakers and practitioners need access to well conduc...

BACKGROUND Health impact assessments (HIA) of policies and projects are conducted differently in different contexts although there has been less HIA research to date in non-western countries. Global HIA research has however suggested that the technical conduct of HIAs is tied to broader conditions and influences to do with decision making and policy development. This study was conducted to deve...

OBJECTIVES The National Environmental Policy Act and related state laws require many public agencies to analyze and disclose potentially significant environmental effects of agency actions, including effects on human health. In this paper we review the purpose and procedures of environmental impact assessment (EIA), existing regulatory requirements for health effects analysis, and potential bar...

BACKGROUND Policy decisions made within all sectors have the potential to influence population health and equity. Recognition of this provides impetus for the health sector to engage with other sectors to facilitate the development of policies that recognise, and aim to improve, population outcomes. This paper compares the approaches implemented to facilitate such engagement in two Australian j...