The use of health impact assessment (HIA) has expanded rapidly throughout the Asia Pacific, with several hundred people now having some level of experience with conducting HIAs. These people are scattered however, with limited ability to share experiences, ask questions or seek help.I'd like to propose a new grouping to help meet these needs: an Asia Pacific Health Impact Forum.
I envisage this forum as a mechanism for information sharing and exchange between individual HIA practitioners (organisations would not necessarily be members). Some of its functions may include promoting the use of HIA across the Asia Pacific region, supporting HIA events, and acting as a mechanism for contacting HIA practitioners.
The forum is not intended to be an association, nor is it intended to replace existing regional initiatives such as WPRO's Thematic Working Group on HIA. In many ways it is about providing a framework for existing ad-hoc activites such as the Asia Pacific HIA HIA listserv and determining venues for Asia Pacific HIA conferences.
I'd like this post to provide a starting point for discussion. What do you think? Please let me know in the comments. Specifically:
- What should be the aims of the forum?
- Who should be members of the forum?
- Which countries should be included in the forum?
- What should the forum’s core activities be?
- Should there be a forum Chair? How should they be determined?
- Should the forum be affiliated with the International Association for Impact Assessment?
- Do we even need a forum?
One possibility is that this could be the genesis of a professional association for HIA in the region. If we take this as a basis then the TORs would be very different to WHO Western Pacific Regional Office's HIA Thematic Working Group and hence be complementary. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteIs forum the right word – seems to imply a discussion type group. Can’t think of anything much better at this stage – maybe network, association, alliance, group!
@Jeff Thanks, I agree we need to complement many organisations' existing activities. I thought this would be best focused at the level of the individual practitioner, as it seems to me that's where the gap is.
ReplyDeleteAnother name could indeed be better and I'd welcome any ideas. My original inspiration was the East Asia Forum, which is more like a clearinghouse for ideas than an event/meeting.
Great idea. Would love to be part of it. We need to have more resources in WA for HIA (as in information for others). There is the potential to share resources and it'd be great to have access to stuff that can be used elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAm happy to go with it regardless of the formalisation of or not as the case may be. May be useful through IAIA but not necessary. Would need to get a few things sorted before we went down that path. Obviously it would depend on the objectives of the group.