Does health impact assessment protect health? Is that the right question?

There's a thought-provoking piece at ABC Environment on Does environmental impact assessment protect the environment? The piece quotes several well-known Australian EIA academics about how well EIA in Australia is performing in terms of environmental protection.

There's no consensus in the piece about whether EIA is successfully protecting the environment or not, though some different ways of thinking about it are discussed. I think that's because the article dances around the core issue: what is the purpose of EIA? This may seem axiomatic and uncontested but I wonder if it's an under-examined difference between the goals and purpose of impact assessments.