Health Impact Assessment

Health Impact Assesssment has been defined as: "A combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, programme or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population."Gothenberg Consensus

• Health impact assessment is intended to help make decisions by predicting the health consequences if a proposal is implemented.
• In addition to assessing the health consequences it also produces recommendation as to how the good consequences for health could be enhanced and how the bad consequences could be avoided or minimised.
• It aims to predict not only the overall consequences for a population but also the distribution of health impacts in that population which groups benefit and which groups lose or at least benefit less.
• HIA may be used to assess policies, programmes or projects. Those undertaking the HIA should always carefully consider the requirements and the concerns of the decision makers. whom they intend to inform.
• The principles and methods of HIA can be used to assess health consequences as part of another impact assessment (such as SEA or EIA). Whether the health consequences of a proposal are assessed with an HIA or as part of some other assessment is unimportant. The important thing is that they are thoroughly assessed. The HIA Gateway

HIA consists of 6 steps

• Decide whether a proposal requires assessment by HIA – often called screening.

• Clarify the questions to be answered by the HIA and how the assessment will be carried out – often called scoping

• Decide what the health impacts will be and how big by considering each pathway by which the proposal could impact on health – often called appraisal and assessment.

• For each option make recommendations as to how good health consequences could be enhanced how bad health consequences could be avoided or minimised and how health inequities could be reduced.

• Communicate the findings of the HIA to the decision makers.

• Evaluate the quality of the HIA highlighting lessons for future HIAs. Monitor which proposals and if possible assess whether any predictions made were correct.

Many HIA in the North East in recent years have been screenings of regional an local strategies. There have also been some rapid appraisals of projects. There has been a review of capacity to undertake HIA and a number of courses run to increase the number of practitioners

National Links

• The HIA Gateway

International Links

• WHO HIA site
• Gothenburg Consensus