Health Impact Project director Aaron Wernham will lead a training and two sessions at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Read more about HIA at this year’s APHA meeting.
“Practical Steps for Completing a Health Impact Assessment in Your Community”—an HIA training session.
This session will give participants an understanding of tools, methods and skills necessary to conduct a Health Impact Assessment (HIA), and a sense of how HIA findings and recommendations can be effectively applied to local, state or federal policy decisions.
With Kim Gilhuly, MPH, of Human Impact Partners, Aaron will begin with an introduction to the practice of Health Impact Assessment, including presentations of different types of HIA projects that have been completed to date, including projects that have been funded by the Health Impact Project. Methodologies to conduct assessment within HIA, discussions regarding the collaborative nature of HIA, communication strategies (including how to use HIA to influence decision-making), and the resources needed to complete a successful HIA will also be presented. Attendees will work together in small groups to engage in hands-on exercises and discussions that will help to build their understanding about the process of conducting the different steps of HIA. The session will conclude with a discussion about the opportunities and challenges to engaging in HIA work, and an opportunity for participants to identify, and consider next steps towards initiating potential HIA projects in their local communities.
Health Impact Assessment: A tool for implementing health in all policies
New mandates to involve other sectors in efforts to improve the public's health—such as those found in Healthy People 2020, the National Prevention Strategy and California's executive order on Health in All Policies—raise a basic question: practically speaking, how can these mandates be implemented?... Through case examples, this session will explore how health impact assessment (HIA) is being used by cities, states and community-based organizations to address these challenges, identify and address the health risks and benefits of decisions made outside the health sector, and build effective interagency collaborations.
Health impact assessment (HIA) has shown promise as a means to factor health into a wide range of decisions that do not normally focus on health, such as transportation and land use planning, permitting of natural resource development and energy production projects (such as power plants and mines), housing projects and policies, and a range of social policies and programs (such as living wage and paid sick days legislation, energy assistance, and rental voucher programs). The use of health impact assessment (HIA) is increasing in the United States. Tracking by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Impact Project have identified over 130 HIAs have been completed or are in progress. Development of this field, however, has been limited by the lack of generally accepted definitions and practice standards. To address this problem, the National Academies convened a committee to develop a framework, terminology, and guidance for conducting HIA at federal, state, tribal, and local levels, including the private sector. This presentation will outline the committee's findings, including a proposed definition, critical elements of an HIA, how to select appropriate applications, methodological questions, and challenges and impediments to more widespread use of HIA.