what is health impact assessment?
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Slides for teaching at University of Newcastle, principally for students to download.TRANSCRIPT
What isHealth Impact Assessment?
University of Newcastle August 2012
Ben Harris-Roxas
www.harrisroxashealth.com
@ben_hr on Twitter
Section 1
Who am I?
I’ve been working on HA since 2003
Mainly throughsupporting and conducting HIAs
I consult and also teach atUNSW, UWS and Macquarie University
Trained more than 550 people in HIA
Active in international HIA community
IAIA Health Section Co-Chair
Section 2
What is health and what creates it?
• Historical understandings
Miasma model of disease
Environmental causes
The view that health ismerely the absence of
illness and disease
controlling the environmental causes of
disease=
dealing with most public health concerns
or does it?
many of the early gains in public health were linked to improving the environmental
factors that cause disease
the environmental determinants of health
You’ll learn more about these during the course
sanitation voted the most
important medical
advance since 1840.
air, water and soil quality and
toxicity
disease vector control
waste management
Image: ŧĒđĠūŸ®
housing quality and
overcrowding
But the global burden of disease has shifted
Source: WHO Global Burden of Disease 2002Source: WHO Global Burden of Disease 2002
Much of this disease stillhas environmental causes
Many of the new causes of disease seemed to be different in nature to
traditional environmental health concerns
Under-considered factors that powerfully influence health
and health related behaviours
NSW Health (2006) Report of the NSW Chief Health Office, NSW Health: Sydney.http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/chorep/dia/dia_typehos.htm
The causes of the causes?
Image: Supermietzi
Schroder S. (2007) We Can Do Better: Improving the health of the American people. New England Journal of Medicine, 357, 1221-1228.
What determines health?(A fuzzy pie chart)
Genetics10-25%
Risk Factors20-40%
Opportunities/ Socioeconomic
Status20-30%
Environment & Place5-15%
Health Services15-30%
Dahlgren G, Whitehead M. (1991) Policies and Strategies to Promote Social Equity in Health. Stockholm: Institute of Futures Studies.
The Social Determinants of Health• Stress• Early life• Social exclusion• Work• Unemployment • Social support • Addiction• Food • Transport• The social gradient in health• .
Barton H, Grant M. (2006) A Health Map for the Local Human Habitat. Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 126, 252-253.
NSW Health (2006) Report of the NSW Chief Health Office, NSW Health: Sydney.http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/chorep/ses/ses_lomidhilex.htm
Murphy M et al. (2006) The Widening Gap in Mortality by Educational Level in the Russian Federation, 1980-2001. American Journal of Public Health, 96:1293–99.
cited in
Marmot M. (2007) Achieving Health Equity: From root causes to fair outcomes. Lancet, 370:1153-1163.
Section 3
What is HIA?
A combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, program or project may be assessed for its potential and often unanticipated effects on the health of the population and the distribution of these impacts within the population.
Gothenburg Consensus Paper
European Centre for Health Policy (1999) Gothenburg Consensus Paper on Health Impact Assessment: main concepts and suggested approach, WHO Europe: Brussels (adapted by Mahoney & Morgan).
HIA is a developing approach that can help to identify and consider the potential - or actual - health impacts of a proposal on a population. Its primary output is a set of evidence-based recommendations geared to informing the decision making process.
Taylor & Quigley
Taylor L, Quigley R. (2002) Health Impact Assessment: A review of reviews. London: National Health Service, Health Development Agency.
Key Aspects of HIA
• A prospective activity
• Uses a combination of methods
• Looks at intended and unintended impacts
• Looks at the distribution of impacts
• Results in evidence-informed recommendations
When is an HIA done?
Explicit Focus on the Distribution of Impacts
1. Age
2.Gender
3.Socioeconomic status
4.Location
5.Ethnicity and culture
6.Existing levels of health and disability
7..
Thinking about the distribution of impacts:Avoidability and fairness
Lead exercise
Section 4
Steps of HIA
The Steps of HIA
• Screening
• Scoping
• Identification
• Assessment
• Decision-making and recommendations
• Evaluation and follow-up
• .
If you implement the
proposal
These will be the impacts
If you make these changes
These will be the gains
Assessment Recommendations
Where does health risk assessment (HRA) fit in?
HRA is a structured framework for assessing risks associated with environmental hazards
(prospectively and retrospectively)
“The process of estimating the potential impact of a chemical, biological, physical or social agent on a specified human population under a specific set of conditions and for a certain time frame’
enHealth HRA Guidelines
Scoping Activity
Master Plan for Cheonggyecheon, Seoul
First, get in your time machine – back to 2003
• Project timeline 2003 - 2005• US$900 million project
After Construction Now (2003)
• Proponent receptive to HIA, but must be completed in 5 months (mustn’t hold up construction!)
• Proponent is Seoul City Government, who are reasonably convinced the proposal is a good idea
• Proponent has asked that the HIA’s focus should be on improving proposal and tweaking, not suggesting new major initiatives or “vetoing” the initiative
Now (2003)
Now (2003)
Now (2003)
Now (2003)
After Construction
Brief video (if there’s time)then
Group work – scoping exercise
So what happened?
Section 6
Where did HIA come from?
Environmental health
Social view of health
Equity
Each bring with them their own
disciplinary beliefs, values,
support base and baggage
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000sEnvironmental Disasters
Regulatory Environmental Impact Assessment
Environmental Health
Health EquityHIA
1956 Clean Air Act (UK)
1969 Santa Barbara Channel (USA)
1969 US National Environmental Policy Act (USA)
1978 Love Canal (USA)
1984 Bhopal (India)
1986 Ottawa Charter
1990 Concepts & Principles of Equity in Health
1997 Jakarta Declaration
1998 Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health (UK)
1999 Gothenburg Consensus Paper on HIA
2008 WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health: Closing the Gap in a Generation
Social View of Health
1972 Lake Pedder Dam controversy (Australia)
1974 Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act (Australia)
2005 Health included in IFC Performance Standards
1994 Framework for Environmental and Health IA (Australia)
2007 1st Asia-Pacific HIA Conference (Australia)
1978 Seveso (Italy)
1990 Environmental Protection Act (UK)
1980 The Black Report (UK)
1972 The Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act
1974 Lalonde Report (Canada)
1998 Merseyside Guidelines for HIA
1978 WHO Seminar on Environmental Health Impact Assessment (Greece)
2004 Equity Focused HIA Framework (Australia)
1978 Declaration of Alma Ata
1992 Asian Development Bank HIA Guidelines
1959 Minamata Bay (Japan) 1980 International
Association for Impact Assessment formed
1969 Cuyahoga River Fire (USA)
1962 Silent Spring
2007 HIA’s use included in Thailand’s Constitution
1998 The Solid Facts
1979 Three Mile Island (USA)
2005 Guide to HIA in the Oil and Gas Sector
1986 Chernobyl (Ukraine)
1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (USA)
2009 Montara West Atlas Oil Spill (Australia)
2010Marmot Review
Section 7
What forms does it take?
There are currently four models ofHIA being used internationally
(to varying extents)
Mandated HIA generally occurs in the context of an EIA, IIA, or ESHIA
and is done to meet a regulatory or statutory requirement
Example: Basslink Integrated IA
HIA for decision support is generally done voluntarily with the goal of improving decision-making and
implementation
Example: Lower HunterRegional Strategy HIA
HIA for advocacy is usually undertaken by organisations who are neither the
proponent or the decision-maker
Example: HIA of the National Emergency Response in the
Northern Territory
Community empowerment HIAs are usually undertaken by communities
whose health is likely to be affected by a proposal
Example: Goodooga EquityFocused HIA
Mandated Decision Support• If HIA is mandated the
process will have to be more prescribed,
• standards of practice will need to be described,
• tighter definitions of evidence that can be challenged in court will need to be determined,
• accreditation of practitioners• Triggers will need to be
clear• Clarification of the roles &
responsibilities of proponents of government policy
• If decision support forms are pursued the process is more chaotic(more of a process than a methodology)
• Less clarity about who will do it and where it might sit within organisations
Advocacy Community Empowerment
• Seeks to reframe or challenge issue/proposal
• Requires a close link to evidence to be credible
• Hard to involve proponents and decision-makers
• Who would do it routinely is unclear
• Often seeks to bring in other evidence/only selective evidence
• May have an agenda – need to be explicit about this
• Difficulty: no control over process or decisions
• Community unlikely to be bound by disciplinary traditions/evidence
• Often linked to social learning, i.e. changing understandings, enabling dialogue
• Is a democratic and political process, rather than a technocratic or rational process
• May look quite different to other HIAs
This diversity is widespread and the challenges efforts to make HIA embedded in the policy development and decision making process
Example: Lack of consensus about HIA from the National Public Health Partnership
But also enables responsiveness to emerging issues
Section 8
What type of things are HIAs done on?
Harris-Roxas B, Harris P. Learning by Doing: The value of case studies of health impact assessment. NSW Public Health Bulletin, 2007:161-163.
Types of Health Impacts
Increasingly also on:
• Climate change (adaptation)
• Transition-to-town issues (food miles, sustainability, etc)
• Energy
• Social programs and education
• .
Section 9
HIA Resources
HIA Blog
healthimpactassessment.blogspot.com
HIA Connect
www.hiaconnect.edu.au
Section 10
Q & A
Section 11
HIA Exercise(If there’s time)
ASEAN Highway
What are the potential health impacts?
What information could we use to assess these potential impacts?
@ben_hr or @hiablog
healthimpactassessment.blogspot.com
linkedin.com/in/benharrisroxas
These slides are available at
www.slideshare.net/benharrisroxas