Stipends and Bursaries to attend IAIA09 in Ghana

The International Association fro Impact Assessment Conference is being held in Accra, Ghana from 16-22 May, 20009. IAIA runs two programs to assist delegates:

Capacity Building Stipend Program
Applications are now being accepted for the IAIA09 Capacity Building Stipend Program. Applications are due 31 December. This is a great opportunity for impact assessment professionals from developing countries/countries in transition to participate in the 2009 conference and to receive ongoing benefits through IAIA membership. The complete program announcement and application form are available online at http://www.iaia.org/modx/index.php?id=442. Questions? Contact green@iaia.org. Please share this information with anyone you know who may qualify.

President’s Bursary
IAIA is pleased to announce one US$1,000 President’s Bursary for IAIA09. An eligible applicant: 1) has not attended an IAIA conference before, 2) is one whose work (academic, government, or industry) is in line with the conference theme, and 3) has submitted an abstract for IAIA09 by 31 January 2009. To apply send an email to info@iaia.org addressing how you meet the criteria above, and attach a 300-word document describing the paper to be presented at IAIA09 and its relevance to the conference theme (Impact Assessment and Human Well-Being). The application deadline is 31 January 2009. For more information about IAIA09 and to submit an abstract, visit http://www.iaia.org/modx/index.php?id=442.

Comments Sought on Draft International Finance Corportation HIA Document

The International Finance Corporation has developed draft guidance for undertaking HIAs and is now seeking public comments. The closing date for comments is 15 January 2009.

From the IFC site:

IFC is requesting comments on its draft Introduction of Health Impact Assessment [PDF, 2.4mb]. This new publication presents pragmatic approaches to assess and address potential health impacts of projects on local communities.

Draft: Introduction of Health Impact Assessment

HIA2008 Conference in Thailand Rescheduled

Ongoing travel difficulties associated with the protests at Bangkok airport have forced conference organisers to reschedule the HIA2008 conference until 22-24 April 2009.

The conference in April still promises to be a great event, with more than 220 participants from 18 countries already registered. The rescheduling also provides an opportunity for new delegates to register - have you thought about attending?

Information and announcements about conference arrangements are available from the HIA2008 conference website. See you in Chiang Mai in April!

HIA eNews Issue 21: Building capacity for HIA

The latest copy of the Health Impact Assessment eNews is now available for download:

http://www.hiaconnect.edu.au/files/HIA_eNews_21.pdf [PDF 720 Kb]

In this issue:

• What is Capacity Building?
• Independent Evaluation of Phase 3 of the New South Wales HIA Project
• Developing Capacity and Capability for HIA in the North East Region of England
• Capacity Building and HIA in New Zealand
• Capacity Building for HIA in European Union New Member States and Pre-Accession Countries
• Upcoming HIA Training
• What’s New?

Past issues of the eNews can be downloaded from www.hiaconnect.edu.au/hia_e-news.htm

The HIA eNews is produced by the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (CHETRE), part of the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at the University of New South Wales, Australia. The NSW HIA Project is funded by NSW Health.

InfoWatch: New HIA-related reports and articles

WHO (2008)World Health Report 2008: Primary health care - Now more than ever, World Health Organization: Geneva. ISBN 9 7892 4156 3734.
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2008/whr08_en.pdf

WHO (2008) Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health, Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization: Geneva. ISBN 9 7892 4156 3703.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563703_eng.pdf

PHAC & WHO (2008) Health Equity Through Intersectoral Action: An analysis of 18 country case studies, Public Health Agency of Canada and the the World Health Organization: Ottawa. ISBN 9 7806 6248 8279.
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/2008/hetia18-esgai18/pdf/hetia18-esgai18-eng.pdf

Paradies Y, Harris R, Anderson I (2008) The Impact of Racism on Indigenous Health in Australia and Aotearoa: Towards a research agenda: Darwin.
http://www.crcah.org.au/publications/downloads/Racism-Report.pdf

Higgins C, Lavin T, Metcalfe O (2008) Health Impacts of Education: A review, Institute of Public Health in Ireland: Dublin. ISBN 9 7809 5595 9813.
http://www.publichealth.ie/files/file/Health%20Impacts%20of%20Education.pdf

Furnee CA, Groot W, van den Brink HM (2008)The Health Effects of Education: A meta-analysis, European Journal of Public Health, 18(4): 417-421. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckn028

Fell G, Haroon S (2008) Learning from a Rapid Health Impact Assessment of a Proposed Maternity Service Reconfiguration in the English NHS, BMC Public Health, 8(138) doi:10.1186/1471-2458-8-138

Curtis S (2008) How Can We Address Health Inequality Through Healthy Public Policy in Europe?, European Urban and Regional Studies, 15(4): 293-305. doi:10.1177/0969776408095106

Brennan Ramirez LK, Baker EA, Metzler M (2008) Promoting Health Equity: A resource to help communities address social determinants of health, Social Determinants of Health Work Group, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services: Atlanta.
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dach/chaps/pdf/SDOHworkbook.pdf

Photos from the 9th International HIA Conference in Liverpool

For those who didn't manage to get to the Liverpool Conference some photos to give you a taste of what it was like. And for those who were there a chance to see if you've been captured on film!

www.flickr.com Sal & Sam's 9th International HIA Conference, Liverpool, 2008 photoset

The European Union and Health Impact Assessments: Are they an unrecognised statutory obligation?

A paper looking at the use of health impact assessment (HIA) in the European Union has been published by the UK National Heart Forum. The paper examines whether HIA should be considered mandatory in the same way as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

Although the EU Treaty includes responsibilities relating to both health and the environment, legal directives passed by the European Commission have made EIAs and SEAs mandatory for Member States, but not health impact assessments.

This paper analyses the position of HIAs, SEAs and EIAs and sets out an agenda for policy development and advocacy, to ensure that health impacts are assessed as regularly and thoroughly as environmental impacts.

Report: September 2008
Author/Editor: Rebecca Salay and Paul Lincoln
Produced by: National Heart Forum
Download PDF (127 Kb)

Health impact assessment: assessing the effectiveness of policies in population health

Evaluación de impacto en salud: valorando la efectividad de las políticas en la salud de las poblaciones

María Sandín-Vázquez (1) y Antonio Sarría-Santamera (1,2)

Revista Española de Salud Pública vol.82 no.3 Madrid May/June 2008

 

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RESUMEN

La Evaluación de Impacto en Salud es una metodología integral propuesta por la OMS para determinar el impacto sobre la salud de los proyectos, propuestas de políticas y estrategias que originalmente no traten específicamente de la salud, pero que tengan un efecto en la misma. El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una aproximación a cómo se elaboran las EIS así como valorar su utilidad en Salud Pública. La Evaluación de Impacto en Salud es un proceso multidisciplinar que combina evidencias cualitativas y cuantitativas en un marco de toma de decisiones y está basada en un modelo de salud que incluye los determinantes económicos, políticos, sociales, psicológicos y ambientales de la salud. Es decir, las intervenciones con un impacto real en la salud de las poblaciones deben tener un enfoque global y ser de nivel estructural, con medidas de Salud Pública decididas a nivel político, por lo que los responsables de poner en marcha esas medidas deben implicarse en el proceso de toma de decisiones y en la posterior evaluación de su efectividad. Para poder realizar Evaluación de Impacto en Salud, es necesario facilitar la integración entre los datos existentes para realizar el diagnóstico inicial y poder investigar a posteriori los efectos de las medidas políticas llevadas a cabo. De esta manera será posible monitorizar los efectos sobre la salud que tengan las acciones identificadas en la Evaluación de Impacto en Salud, maximizando sus potenciales efectos positivos y evitando los posibles efectos adversos.

Palabras clave: Evaluación de impacto en salud. Salud Pública.

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ABSTRACT

Health Impact Assessment is a comprehensive methodology proposed by the World Health Organization to determine the impact on health of projects, policies and strategies that are no originally specifically health-related but that could have on effect on health. This work aims to review the methodological approaches to Health Impact Assessment, and determine its value in Public Health. Health Impact Assessment is a multidisciplinary process that combines both qualitative and quantitative evidence in a decision-making frame. It is based on a model of health that includes the economic, political, social, psychological, and environmental determinants of health. If interventions with a real impact on the populations health require a comprehensive and structural approach, with Public Health measures taken at political level, those responsible for implementing such measures have to engage in the decision-making process and in the assessment of its effectiveness. To conduct Health Impact Assessment it is necessary to facilitate the integration of the existing data in order to perform the initial diagnosis and be able to investigate the late effects of the policy measures implemented. This way it will be possible to systematically monitor the effects on health of the actions which derive from Health Impact Assessment, thus maximizing potential positive effects on health and preventing the potential adverse effects.

Click here to go to original article in Spanish

Click here for English translation
(some minor errors in translation e.g. HIA is abbreviated as EIS)

Happy 3rd Birthday for Int HIA Blog!

Looking back over the archive of posts I found that Ben H-R had written the first post on the 1st September 2005!

That means this blog has been running for 3 years and we have notched up 112 posts since that time. Not bad going but I think over the next three years it would be great to reach at least 1 post a week (52 posts a year 156 posts over 3 years) and hopefully 2 posts a week (I can dream, can't I!).

It'd also be great to have more comment. Unfortunately, it takes time to reflect and write up insights, ideas and experiences (Another thing for the to do  list or is that wish list).

We haven't had a huge lot of comments which is a shame but I hope that our readers out there enjoy what we are blogging about and bringing to their notice.

Ben and I have been aiming to get other people to contribute to the blog but it's been difficult to make the time to contact people. That's one more thing on my HIA blog to do list. So if you are interested in contributing then get in touch with Ben (Harris-Roxas, click his name on the right-hand side) and we'd love to have you on as an occasional or regular contributor.

Last but not least I want to thank Ben for having the idea for creating a HIA blog (inspired!) and for allowing me to contribute over these last few years.

Thank you Ben and thank you HIA Blog, here's to many more years of HIA blogging and blogs!!!

Short Video Demo - how to change email and forum preferences at the HIA Gateway

The HIA Gateway Forum is pretty intuitive but some elements are not so easy to spot.

I therefore created a video demonstration showing how to register for the HIA Gateway and seoperatel;y for the HIA Gateway Forum. I've had some good feedback on the value of a video demo and thought it was worth highlighting on the blog.

The video shows how to register (which buttons on APHO and HIA pages to click) but is more focused on what to do after logging on to join the forum and to change email notification settings.

The video demo can be found at http://blip.tv/file/1043450/

Report on the State of Public Health in Canada

Canada's first annual report on the state of public health has just been published Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. David Butler-Jones.

The report summarises the key determinants of health that underlies the health and wellbeing of Canadians: income, employment, environment, housing, education, nutrition, access to medical services and individual lifestyles.

It also outlines key Canadian and international initiatives aimed at reducing inequalities. Interestingly HIA is mentioned in relation to Quebec’s Public Health Act (Article 54).

The report described this as:

"A unique approach to public health in the province of Quebec has other provinces and, indeed, other countries, taking notice. By requiring other government departments to consult with the Minister of Health and Social Services in regard to decisions or actions that could impact public health – a broader, more comprehensive and inclusive approach to public health strategies and interventions has been taken.420 The consulting component of this ‘whole of government’ approach came into law with the adoption of Article 54 in Quebec’s Public Health Act in 2001. It states that new measures provided for in an Act or regulation in all provincial ministries be assessed to determine significant impacts of proposed actions on the health of populations. A health impact assessment (HIA) process is currently used to carry out these determinations, an approach that is fairly new to Canada outside of Quebec but more common in some European countries. At the national level, Canada’s National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy is currently studying HIA in relation to Article 54 and public policy, and will disseminate its findings to the public health community."

The report can be found at http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/2008/cpho-aspc/pdf/cpho-report-eng.pdf

HIA Gateway Re-opening Conference

A really interesting, insightful and successful conference was held in Birmingham on 25th June 2008 to formally re-open and re-launch the HIA Gateway site.

The programme included a range of presentations which can be found at the HIA Gateway site.

Click here to see the conference programme and presentations.



The presentation were:

Why the UK Department of Health supports the HIA gateway

What's in the gateway?

Recent and Future Website Developments

Networks and exchange of ideas among HIA people

HIA in a World of Social Suffering

The contribution of the commercial sector / quality control

Health Impact Assessment in London

Capacity for HIA

To see some pictures from the conference click here. Looking forward to all the other HIA conferences this year.

Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act 2008 HIA

On July 30, 2008, Human Impact Partners and researchers at the San Francisco Department of Public Health jointly released the study - a Health Impact Assessment - of proposed legislation that would guarantee all workers in the state at least one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked (also termed the Paid Sick Days HIA).

The legislation, the Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008 (AB 2716), has passed in the State Assembly and is currently being considered by the State Senate. It appears be one of the first such studies of a state-level labor policy.

A Health Impact Assessment of the California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008 finds that "substantial evidence indicates that the law would have significant positive public health impacts for workers and for all Californians." The study further documents evidence showing that guaranteed paid sick days for all workers would help:

• Reduce the spread of flu;
• Protect the public from diseases carried by sick workers in restaurants and in nursing homes;
• Enable workers to stay home when they need to care for a sick dependent; and
• Prevent hunger and homelessness among low-income workers with severe illnesses.

The study also finds that workers with the greatest needs for paid sick days, such as those whose children have asthma or other chronic diseases or are low-wage workers, are those that frequently do not have the benefit.

There was extensive press coverage of the HIA and the proposed law, in print and radio media, include major California newpapers and on NPR. The HIA has contributed to framing of the paid sick days laws as health policy.

To access the summary or the full report, visit: http://humanimpact.org/PSD/

Courtesy of Rajiv Bhatia

Joining HIA email lists - UK & Ireland, USA and Asia Pacific

I just had a request from someone about how to join the HIA email lists (I've had a few requests over the last year or so) and thought it would make a useful post.

For the UK and Ireland HIA network, go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=hianet&A=1

For the Asia Pacific HIA network, send an email to majordomo@explode.unsw.edu.au with "subscribe hia-seao" as the body of the email.

For the USA HIA network, send an email to sympa@lists.onenw.org with “subscribe hia-usa” in the subject line (see also http://www.feetfirst.info/phbe/HIA-USA-listserv ).

You should get a confirmation message that you will need to click a link in to confirm your subscription (this may take a day or so as sometimes a moderator reviews it before accepting.


You can of course join one, two or all three!

What's the impact on health? Experts explore issues in using health impact assessments to find out

A short summary of the 2004 workshop in the US funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has just been published and it outlines the key recommendations from the workshop.

Key recommendations of the workshop included:

• Conduct pilot tests of existing health impact assessment tools, ranging from simple checklists to complex collaborative processes. Pilot tests should be designed to provide information on:
  • The usefulness of health impact assessment methods in US settings.
  • The availability of needed health impact data.
  • The acceptability of the process to local decision-makers.
• Develop a database of health impacts of common projects and policies. Such a searchable database should contain:
  • An inventory of tools for conducting health impact assessments.
  • Guidelines for choosing tools used in health impact assessments.
  • Systematic reviews of health impacts for a range of policies and projects.
  • Links to completed health impact assessments on numerous topics.
  • Lists of experts in the field of health impact assessment.
• Develop resources for the use of health impact assessment, which may vary according to scope of the project, depth of analysis, time available and processes employed.
• Build workforce capacity to conduct health impact assessments, including:
  • Health impact assessment professionals, whose training curriculum should include skills to:
    • Understand the health impact assessment process.
    • Identify stakeholders.
    • Analyze policies.
    • Identify and quantify health impacts.
    • Communicate results.
    • Understand land use and transportation planning.
  • Planners and decision-makers, who would be more likely to request and use health impact assessment processes if trained to understand their value. Health impact assessment training for this group should be interdisciplinary, problem-based and not overly technical.
• Evaluate health impact assessments. Such assessment have the potential to:
  • Advance the field.
  • Demonstrate value.
  • Document influence on decisions.
  • Improve quality.
  • Facilitate training.
  • Enhance institutional relationships.
  • Raise awareness of health impacts for decision-makers.
  • Examine adherence of processes to underlying values.
  
  Three types of health impact assessment evaluations would apply, depending on the needs:
  • Process evaluations examining how the health impact assessment was planned and implemented.
  • Impact evaluations assessing the effect of the health impact assessment on the decision-making process.
  • Outcome evaluations comparing the health outcomes after implementation with those predicted by the health impact assessment.

External link: http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?catid=17&id=32231

Use of HIA in the US - 27 case studies 1999-2007

This article documents the growing use in the United States of health impact assessment (HIA) methods to help planners and others consider the health consequences of their decisions.

It used multiple search strategies to identify 27 HIAs that were completed in the U.S. during 1999 –2007 and key characteristics of each HIA were abstracted from published and unpublished sources.

• The areas examined in these HIAs ranged from policies about living wages and after-school programs to projects about power plants and public transit.
  
• Most HIAs were funded by local health departments, foundations, or federal agencies.
  
• Concerns about health disparities were especially important in HIAs on housing, urban redevelopment, home energy subsidies, and wage policy.
  
• The use of quantitative and nonquantitative methods varied among HIAs.
  
• Most HIAs presented recommendations for policy or project changes to improve health. Impacts of the HIAs were infrequently documented.
  

These completed HIAs are useful for helping conduct future HIAs and for training public health officials and others about HIAs. More work is needed to document the impact of HIAs and thereby increase their value in decision-making processes.

The article can be found at the CDC website at http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/publications/AJPM_HIAcasestudies_March2008.pdf