Health Impact Assessment Blog

20 April 2010

Thailand’s New Rules & Procedures for the Health Impact Assessment of Public Policies

Thailand's National Health Commission Office has issued revised rules and procedures for HIA's use:

Rules and Procedures for the Health Impact Assessment of Public Policies [294Kb]

The document clarifies the rights and obligations of citizens, government and industry in relation to HIA. It's an interesting read and provides a detailed account of Thailand's far-reaching health impact assessment regulations.

Much of the recent media coverage of the Mab Ta Phut case in Thailand has focused on the burden that HIA is placing on business. This document provides a more balanced and nuanced perspective on the regulations and practices that underpin Thailand's innovative approach to 'healthy development'.

Adelaide Statement on Health in All Policies

A statement has been developed following last week's WHO/South Australian Government Health in All Policies Conference.

The Adelaide Statement on Health in All Policies [PDF 205Kb] sets out the rationale for the HiAP approach, identifies some of its drivers and mechanisms, and discusses the role the health sector will play.

This version of the statement was developed at the conference and is not finalised, however it has been approved for dissemination. If you have any comments please make them below and I'll make sure they're brought to the attention of those finalising the statement.

UNSW Receives International Association for Impact Assessment 2010 Instititonal Award

The Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (CHETRE) has received the International Association for Impact Assessment's 2010 Institutional Award. The award recognises CHETRE's "outstanding commitment to health impact assessment capacity building"

CHETRE is part of the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at the University of New South Wales. CHETRE is only the second health-focused institution to receive the award (the Thai Health Systems Research Institute received it in 2005) and only the second Australian institution (the Commonwealth EPA received it in 1996, which is now part of the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts).

Patrick Harris from CHETRE receiving the award
Past Institutional Award recipients include:

2009 Capacity Development and Linkages for Environmental Assessment in Africa (CLEAA, Tanzania)
2008 Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, Canada)
2007 Swedish International Development Cooperation (Sweden)
2006 Task Team on SEA of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (OECD/DAC, United Kingdom)
2005 Health Systems Research Institute (Thailand)
2004 African Development Bank (Tunisia)
2003 Southern African Institute for Environmental Assessment (SAIEA, Namibia)
2001 International Institute for Environment Development (IIED, UK)
2001 World Commission on Dams (South Africa)
2000 International Union for Conservation of Nature (Switzerland)
1999 The Netherlands Ministry of Housing & Spatial Planning (The Netherlands) and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK)
1998 Japanese Department of Environment, Division of Environmental Assessment (Japan)
1997 Manchester EIA Centre (UK)
1996 Australian Environmental Protection Agency (Australia)
1995 Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (Canada)
1994 US President’s Council on Environmental Quality (USA)

17 April 2010

Recent presentations and posters on Health Impact Assessment (HIA)

These are some presentations and posters that Patrick Harris and I prepared for the recent IAIA'10 conference in Geneva and the WHO HIA Conference on
Urban development and extractive industries: What can HIA offer?

The Role of Conceptual Learning in Health Impact Assessment

View more presentations from Ben Harris-Roxas.

Impact Evaluation of Three Health Equity Impact Assessments

View more presentations from Ben Harris-Roxas.

Poster: A Framework to Understand How Health Can Contribute to the Assessment of Extractive Industry Project Impacts

View more documents from Ben Harris-Roxas.

Poster: The Health Sector’s Use of Health Impact Assessment to Inform Land Use Planning in Australia

View more documents from Ben Harris-Roxas.

Slides and posters rarely speak for themselves but they'll give you an idea about the sort of things I've been thinking about. If you have any questions please post a comment or email me.

14 April 2010

A Different Kind of Health Reform: Health in All Policies

While everyone is debating the details of the Australian Government’s final position on health reform and next Monday’s Council of Australian Governments meeting another, quieter debate is underway. A conference organised by the World Health Organization and the South Australian Government is debating how to ensure that health is considered in all government policies.

This approach, known as Health in All Policies, seeks to make ensuring health and wellbeing a shared goal across government. Increasingly the issues that health systems and governments face worldwide are complex and lie beyond the direct control of health ministries. These are issues like ageing populations, sustainability of financing, rising rates of chronic disease, pandemics, and an increasing recognition of the importance of early childhood in determining health throughout a person’s life.

Heal in All Policies recognises this and seeks to make health not only a feature of joined-up government but also the driving force for it. As South Australian Premier Mike Rann noted when he opened the conference, health expenditure will account for the entire South Australian Government budget by 2030 unless bold steps are taken.

Health in All Policies originated from Finland as a major initiative under its Presidency of the European Union in 2006. In Australia, the South Australian Government has led the charge. It has built Health in All Policies into South Australia’s Strategic Plan and health lens analyses are undertaken on policies across government.

Health in All Policies is not an entirely new idea. Twenty-two years ago another Adelaide WHO conference developed Recommendations on Healthy Public Policy that emphasised the important role of all government policy in ensuring people’s health. There has been intersectoral action for health since then, but it hasn’t necessarily resulted in lasting changes to the way health ministries relate to other government agencies.

The impetus for re-focusing on the role of intersectoral policy now is that we face a number of “wicked problems” in health that have implications across government. These are issues such as rising rates of obesity that involve a complex array of stakeholders, a lack of agreement about what the nature of the problem actually is, interlocking constraints and constraints on resources. Wicked problems can’t be solved, only managed.

Health in All Policies is not a panacea but it does represent an important shift from the health sector describing the importance of the determinants of health to working constructively across government on them. It’s an ambitious vision to make health an explicit goal of all of government, rather than a silo to be maintained.

This activity is not without risk however. Having failed to reorient health systems to prevention are we now going to fail spectacularly to reorient the whole of government?

There is some cause for hope however. Reform is in the air, and increasing health costs are providing a renewed focus on a broader prevention agenda. South Australia, whilst still in the early days of its Health in All Policies agenda, has demonstrated that high-level action is possible in Australia.

More Information on HiAP
Health in All Policies – South Australian Department of Health

Health in All Policies – European Union

Ben Harris-Roxas is participating in the Health in All Policies Conference and his views don’t represent the organisers’.

12 April 2010

New Guidance: Methodology for Integrated Environmental and Health Impact Assessment - A focus on Latin America and the Carribean

The United Nations Environment Program has put out new guidance on a Methodology for Integrated Environmental and Health Impact Assessment - A focus on Latin America and the Carribean.

You can download the guidance here [PDF 14 Mb], and it's available in Spanish [Metodología para una evaluación integrada de medio ambiente y salud. Un enfoque en América Latina y el Caribe].

Health in All Policies Conference in Adelaide

I'm heading to Adelaide today for the WHO/South Australian Government Health in All Policies Conference. The program is available from:

http://bit.ly/acwzwc

Are there any particular aspects of the conference you'd like hear more about? Let me know in the comments and I'll report back.

1 April 2010

New Zealand HIA eNews: You've done HIA training, what next?

In this issue:

Profile: Les Milligan, Nelson Marlborough DHB
12 Practical Tips for Keeping HIA on Your Agenda After Attending Training
Getting In and Doing It: How mentoring can help you
Invitation to Attend & Present at the 3rd Asia & Pacific Regional HIA Conference
'Ala Mo'ui and its Relevance to HIA
International Articles, Websites and Short Films of Interest

Download eNews PDF 117Kb

New HIA Gateway Resources

29 March 2010

Upcoming Health Impact Assessment Training in Sydney and Melbourne

There are two HIA training courses coming up in Australia:

26 March 2010

HIA Job in Oakland, Calfornia

Human Impact Partners (HIP) is looking for a Research Associate to work on Health Impact Assessment (HIA) projects with our growing non-profit organization. This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of community-focused HIA work that is creating systemic change to improve people’s lives.

About HIP
Human Impact Partners’ vision is a world where:

health is understood broadly as complete physical, mental and social well-being;
health is a primary consideration in public and corporate decision making;
health inequities due to race, class, place, or other attributes do not exist;
the health of all communities improves;
all people have the information, tools and power needed to influence decisions that affect their health; and
health is a holistic framework that brings diverse people and organizations to work together.

HIP believes that health should be considered in all decision making. We raise awareness of and collaboratively use innovative data, processes and tools that evaluate health impacts and inequities in order to transform the policies, institutions and places people need to live healthy lives. Through training and mentorship we also build the capacity of impacted communities and their advocates, workers, public agencies, and elected officials to conduct health-based analyses and use them to take action.

Human Impact Partners’ current staff of six conducts Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in the context of land use development, and transportation, incarceration and employment policy. We are expanding into other policy areas as well. Through training and mentoring, we also build the capacity of others to conduct HIA. We are looking to build a diverse staff as we grow. For more details about HIP and about HIA, please visit our webpage at www.humanimpact.org.

Examples of past and current projects:
West Oakland Housing, Industrial Lands & Port
Humboldt County General Plan Update
South Central Los Angeles Redevelopment
I-710 Freeway Expansion
Port Container Fee legislation
Paid Sick Days Legislation in California, at the Federal level, and in other jurisdictions

Human Impact Partners is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

About the Position

The Research Associate will participate in conducting HIAs on a range of policies, plans and projects in collaboration with other HIP staff, community groups, public health agencies and other stakeholders. The primary function of the Research Associate is to support the analysis and reporting phases of HIA, including:

Conducting literature reviews;
Evaluating the distribution of social, economic, and environmental conditions at the local level;
Using quantitative methods to predict how changes in social, economic, and environmental conditions may impact specific health outcomes;
Using epidemiological methods and research to evaluate the impact of public policies, programs, and projects on health;
Developing research plans, preparing statistics and analyzing data using STATA, SPSS or SAS;
Publishing and disseminating findings including report and manuscript preparation and presentation; and
Communicating to stakeholders and decision-makers about the importance of considering health in land use planning and policy-making.

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a very rapidly growing field, and will require a range of demonstrated skills and abilities, including:

understanding and applying the public health literature, epidemiological studies, and quantitative models used to predict impacts;
conducting creative research;
working with a range of stakeholders including community residents, organizers and advocates, public health and other government agencies, elected officials, academic researchers;
experience in quantitative economic, transportation, housing, and policy analysis skills preferred;
writing reports;
carrying out and coordinating projects with others at HIP.

Salary: negotiable, based on experience
Start date: May/June 2010

The position is full time, but may start on a contract basis and then move to employment with benefits.

Qualifications

Completion of a master’s degree in public health with a concentration in epidemiology or statistics, or other field with strong analytical methods;
At least 2 years of relevant job experience;
Strong quantitative analysis skills and experience with statistical analyses;
Experience in quantitative economic, transportation, housing, and policy analysis skills preferred;
Strong research and writing skills;
Ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
Good interpersonal qualities.

In addition to English language fluency, mastery of an additional language is highly desirable.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, resume including three references and a brief writing sample including examples of quantitative analyses by Friday, April 16, 2010 to hr@humanimpact.org

23 March 2010

Understanding US Health Reform (if you don't live in the US)

It's a little bit off-topic but a lot has been made of the US health reforms that were passed in the US House of Representatives yesterday. Though it was an auspicious event it can sometimes be difficult to appreciate the significance of these reforms, particularly if, like me, you're fortunate enough to live in a country with a relatively good universal health system.

Dr Lesley Russell was interviewed on ABC's Life Matters today. She explained the reforms and their significance in terms that are readily comprehensible to people outside the US. She's also recently written on the reforms for Croakey.

You can access the interview [MP3] here. It's worth a listen.

Edit: Dr Russell has posted another piece on Croakey about the reforms.

20 March 2010

Is Health Recognized in the EU's Policy Process? An analysis of the European Commission's impact assessments

There's an interesting article in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Public Health on Is Health Recognized in the EU's Policy Process? An analysis of the European Commission's impact assessments. Abstract:

Background
The European Commission has an Impact Assessment (IA) procedure that aims to inform decision-makers of the all important impacts that decisions may have. This article studies how health is considered in the IA procedure and how it is reflected in the reports: what aspects, whose and simply in what context health is mentioned in the IA reports.

Methods
Half of the Commissions IAs from 2006 were studied. The analysis was text based and informed by content analysis. In total, 48 reports by 17 DGs were analysed.

Results
Five DGs (29%) and 10 reports (21%) made no reference to human health, public health or health systems. Five DGs were clearly considering health impacts more often than others; DG EMPL, SANCO, AGRI, ELARG and ENV. Health systems/services were most often and human health next most common referred to (39% and 29% of all, respectively). Health impacts were usually referred to in the sections on the definition of problems and the analysis of impacts. Seldom were they reported on in the sections on policy options, comparing options, or in the monitoring and evaluation sections.

Conclusion
The results partly support concerns about the potential neglect of health impacts. The results also suggest that health is not considered an important factor when discussing alternative policy choices, and neither does it seem to be an important objective. There is a clear need for further exploration on ways in which health could be more appropriately considered when impacts of other policies are considered by the various DGs.

I'll leave it to you to figure out the implications of the study, but it would seem to suggest that getting health meaningfully considered in policy development requires more that a simple mandate, a common theme in the the development of HIA internationally.

You can access the abstract here, a subscription is required to access the full article.

19 March 2010

Conference - Livelihood and Health Impacts of the Climate Change, Khon Kaen Thailand

"IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE HAS NO BOUNDARIES – Livelihood and Health of Rural Communities are the Most Hardest Hit"

International Conference & Workshop on

“Livelihood and Health Impacts of the Climate Change: Community Adaptation Strategies”

24-25 August 2010

At Pullman Raja Orchid Hotel, Khon Kaen Thailand

http://ph.kku.ac.th/conference/

17 March 2010

Asia Pacific HIA Email List has 560 Subscribers: Are you one of them?

The Asia Pacific Health Impact Assessment Email List now has 560 subscribers from 27 countries. Are you one of them?

For more information on the list and details on how to join go to:

http://www.hiaconnect.edu.au/asia_pacific_HIA_listserv.php

The listserv averages one email a week, though there are more during busier times.

15 March 2010

HIA2010 Third Asia Pacific HIA Conference - 17-19 November, Dunedin, New Zealand

We are pleased to make the first formal announcement for the 3rd Asia and Pacific HIA Conference, to be held at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, from 17th -19th November 2010.

The primary host is the Health, Equity and Wellbeing Impact Assessment Research Unit in the University, in association with a number of other groups. Conference management is being supported by the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) and the conference website will be available through the IAIA website.

Please see the announcement for more details. We will send a second announcement, with specific dates for registration, abstract submission, etc. in April. The conference website will go live in a week or so.

Richard Morgan, Louise Signal, Rob Quigley.

Edit 20 March: The conference website is now live