Job: Project Manager HIA of California Cap and Trade:

Project Manager position at the Public Health Institute, Redmond CA USA
Health Impact Assessment of California Cap and Trade Scheme
www.phi.jobs/applicants/Central?quickFind=50568

The Public Health Institute (PHI) is a large non-profit public health organization conducting a broad range of public health research, training, and technical assistance programs in California, throughout the nation, and around the world. PHI is seeking a full time 1 year limited Project Manager for Health Impact Assessment (HIA). This position is located in Richmond, CA.

Project Manager will coordinate a HIA of the California Air Resources Board cap and trade regulations. The tasks of the overall project include completing primarily the scoping, assessment, and reporting phases of the HIA. The assessment phase includes conducting pathway analyses, analysis of baseline data, and scenarios analysis. The Project Manager will be in charge of the overall project. Duties will include conducting meetings and communicating with key stakeholders and partners, writing the final report, and conducting an evaluation of the process.

This position represents an excellent opportunity for someone with interests in health effects of climate change and policy implications.

Call for Abstracts: WHO/IAIA one day HIA conference to coincide with IAIA10

Health Impact Assessment Conference

To be held at WHO in Geneva on 7 April 2010

Urban development and extractive industries: What can HIA offer?

Download the Flyer

A one-day conference on recent advances in Health Impact Assessment will take place in Geneva on 7 April 2010, hosted by WHO and the IAIA. The preliminary programme will be posted soon.

Abstracts are welcome in the two conference topic areas:

Topic 1: HIA in Cities (morning session). For this topic, we are looking for HIA examples or analysis of HIAs linked to urban development; abstracts must focus on the links between urban health and projects and programmes in sectors such as land use planning, housing, waste management and transport.

Topic 2: HIA in Extractive Industries (afternoon session). For this topic, we
are looking for HIA examples or analysis of HIAs in extractive industries dealing with natural resources, such as mining, oil and gas, forestry and logging.

Within each of these topic areas, we are particularly interested in abstracts that explore one or more of the following aspects:

a) Linkages between project management and health systems/health authorities.
b) Accountability mechanisms for HIA, such as monitoring, evaluation and followup of HIA recommendations, impact on policies and on health outcomes.
c) The use of health in stakeholder engagement and communicating about
project impacts.
d) Has the HIA resulted in modifications to plans and projects? Has it assisted in protecting and promoting health?

Instructions for applicants:
The abstracts are to be sent by e-mail only, by 15 February 2010 at the latest, to the following address: hia@who.int

Please print HIA URBAN DEVELOPMENT or HIA NATURAL RESOURCES in the Subject line.

Each abstract should be a short and concise document in Word (.doc) or pdf
format. In no more than 150 words, it should describe the experience or example and show how it relates to one or more of the criteria described above.

Selected authors will be contacted directly and asked to prepare posters based on the abstracts which will be published in the conference proceedings.

Where have we been? A new way to stay up to date

The HIA Blog has been lying fallow for a little while, though this is largely because I have been using Twitter to post news and information as it crops up. Here are some recent tweets you might have missed:

• Event: Beyond Evidence on Health Inequities: What works, why and how, Adelaide Australia 27th - 28th of April 2010 http://bit.ly/8qs4ww
• Article by our friend Ida Knutsson onhealth impact assessment developments in Sweden http://bit.ly/8lxxXX
• RT croakeyblog Electric fan caution & other heatwave survival tips. the info is there but are we prepared? http://tiny.cc/7ml2X - with thanks to @hiablog
• RT theneweconomics The Guardian: Economists start to consider that money can't buy happiness, and nef are the torchbearers. http://bit.ly/8jsHDH
• @MeredithGould @crgonzalez Not sure if this is feature discussed - health impact assessment search with timeline http://bit.ly/5eEB08 #hcsm
• Happened to re-discover the IPHI review of the health impacts of education - handy! http://bit.ly/8u9yE3
• Institute of Public Health in Ireland HIA Training: 8-20 Feb 2010 in Dublin. http://bit.ly/8Pzmle
• Ireland Workshop: Climate Change: whose health will be affected? Thursday 25 February 2010 10.00am–1.00pm in Dublin. http://bit.ly/5lRtVT
• Link: US National Association for County and City Health Officials Mentorship Program http://bit.ly/5hmlPX
• Book Plug: Theory in a Nutshell: A Practical Guide to Health Promotion Theories 3rd Ed. (Harris & Wise work on HIA with me at CHETRE) http://bit.ly/8uIHka
• RT @OECD: Over 1 bn people haven’t enough to eat. OECD Insights on agricultural policy for food security http://www.oecdinsights.org
• Health impact assessment becomes law in Thailand [Bangkok Post Article] http://bit.ly/5mRrNI Description of HIA procedural clarification.

You can follow the HIA Blog on Twitter. It's easy to use, mercifully brief, and you can probably check it on your mobile phone.

Did British American Tobacco influence the development of EU impact assessment regulations to favour business interests over health?

A fascinating article on the role of British American Tobacco in advocating for business-oriented forms of impact assessment in the European Union was published in PLOS Medicine today:

“Working the System”—British American Tobacco's Influence on the European Union Treaty and Its Implications for Policy: An Analysis of Internal Tobacco Industry Documents

The editor's summary describes the article far more succinctly than I can:

What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

The researchers analyzed 714 BAT internal documents (identified by searching the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, which contains more than 10 million internal tobacco company documents) that concerned attempts made by BAT to influence regulatory reforms in Europe. They also analyzed related literature from other sources (for example, academic publications) and interviewed 16 relevant people (including people who had worked at the European Commission). This analysis shows that from 1995, BAT worked with other businesses to promote European regulatory reforms (in particular, the establishment of a business-orientated form of IA) that favor large corporations. A lobbying campaign, initiated by BAT but involving a “policy network” of other companies, first helped to secure binding changes to the EU Treaty that require policymakers to minimize legislative burdens on businesses. The analysis shows that after achieving this goal, which BAT described as an “important victory,” further lobbying ensured that these treaty changes were translated into the implementation of a business-orientated form of IA within the EU. Both the tobacco industry and the chemical industry, the researchers argue, have since used the IA to delay and/or weaken EU legislation intended to protect public health.

What Do These Findings Mean?

These findings suggest that BAT and its corporate allies have fundamentally altered the way in which EU policy is made by ensuring that all significant EU policy decisions have to be assessed using a business-orientated IA. As the authors note, this situation increases the likelihood that the EU will produce policies that favor big business rather than the health of its citizens. Furthermore, these findings suggest that by establishing a network of other industries to help in lobbying for EU Treaty changes, BAT was able to distance itself from the push to establish a business-orientated IA to the extent that Commission officials were unaware of the involvement of the tobacco industry in campaigns for IA. Thus, in future, to safeguard public health, policymakers and public-health groups must pay more attention to corporate efforts to shape decision-making processes. In addition, public-health groups must take account of the ways in which IA can be used to undermine as well as support effective public-health policies and they must collaborate more closely in their efforts to ensure effective national and international policy.

This study should be of interest to all impact assessors, but particularly those who think that mandating IA's use is the solution to perceived shortcomings in policy development and planning.

Update: Media Coverage
The Guardian
Reuters
New Scientist
EUObserver

The Lancet: Health and Climate Series of 6 articles

The Lancet has published six important articles on climate change and health today.

All the articles are open access see below. Register on the site and check out the other open access materials on the site.

Click here to go to The Lancet Health and Climate Change Series

See also the:

Energy and Health series
Managing the Health effects of Climate Change

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: household energy

Paul Wilkinson, Kirk R Smith, Michael Davies, Heather Adair, Ben G Armstrong, Mark Barrett, Nigel Bruce, Andy Haines, Ian Hamilton, Tadj Oreszczyn, Ian Ridley, Cathryn Tonne, Zaid Chalabi

Summary

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: urban land transport

James Woodcock, Phil Edwards, Cathryn Tonne, Ben G Armstrong, Olu Ashiru, David Banister, Sean Beevers, Zaid Chalabi, Zohir Chowdhury, Aaron Cohen, Oscar H Franco, Andy Haines, Robin Hickman, Graeme Lindsay, Ishaan Mittal, Dinesh Mohan, Geetam Tiwari, Alistair Woodward, Ian Roberts

Summary

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: low-carbon electricity generation

Anil Markandya, Ben G Armstrong, Simon Hales, Aline Chiabai, Patrick Criqui, Silvana Mima, Cathryn Tonne, Paul Wilkinson

Summary

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture

Sharon Friel, Alan D Dangour, Tara Garnett, Karen Lock, Zaid Chalabi, Ian Roberts, Ainslie Butler, Colin D Butler, Jeff Waage, Anthony J McMichael, Andy Haines

Summary

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: health implications of short-lived greenhouse pollutants

Kirk R Smith, Michael Jerrett, H Ross Anderson, Richard T Burnett, Vicki Stone, Richard Derwent, Richard W Atkinson, Aaron Cohen, Seth B Shonkoff, Daniel Krewski, C Arden Pope III, Michael J Thun, George Thurston

Summary

Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: overview and implications for policy makers

Andy Haines, Anthony J McMichael, Kirk R Smith, Ian Roberts, James Woodcock, Anil Markandya, Ben G Armstrong, Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, Alan D Dangour, Michael Davies, Nigel Bruce, Cathryn Tonne, Mark Barrett, Paul Wilkinson

Summary

This may of use for some of the groups you work with or train. PAHO has produced a self-instructional course on the social determinants of health.

New HIA Publications from Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy

Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy has released two new publications:

• a report of a Canadian Interprovincial Meeting on Health Impact Assessment, and
  
• a review of HIA training courses internationally.
  

Vagaries of counting

There always been an issue about whether quantifying is as inherently subjective as qualitative data.

A recent article titled 'On quantitizing' is worth a read. The writing is quite sociological postmodern at times but the examples on page 4 and 5 are insightful.

It argues that quantifying social data hides a lot of subjective judgements by respondents and researchers that need unpicking to fully realise what quantitative information has been captured.

One study on women's experiences of unplanned cesarean births asked them to sum up their their experience on a scale from 0=bad to 10=good. In the study no one rated their experience as 0 even though some women had just finished narrating highly negative stories about their birth experiences. One woman explicitly stated "I wouldn't put myself at 0."

Similarly in a study using two rating systems to assess perceptions of success in life, one from 0=not at all successful to 10= extremely successful and the other -5=not at all successful to 5=extremely successful. 34% o respondents chose a value between -5 and 0 while only 13% chose a value (in the formally equivalent scale) between 0 and 5 on the 0-10 point scale. According to the study author when 'not at all successful' was attached to 0 respondents took this to mean absence of outstanding achievements while when it was attached to -5 with 0 as midpoint they interpreted this as 'presence of failures'.

For me this has implications for evaluating health and wellbeing status using questionnaires when measuring the benefits of environmental and social interventions.

Source:
On Quantitizing

Margarete Sandelowski, Corrine I. Voils, and George Knafl

J Mix Methods Res. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 October 27.

PMCID: PMC2768355
Published in final edited form as: J Mix Methods Res.2009 July 1; 3(3): 208–222. doi: 10.1177/1558689809334210.

Image courtesy of Darren Hester on Flickr

Thought for the day

"[The public should] tolerate the inequality as a way of achieving greater prosperity for all."

Lord Griffiths, vice chair of Goldman Sachs,
speaking about bank employee bonuses in the UK.


To read a fuller discussion see The Guardian by clicking here.

The positive health and wellbeing impacts of Somali pirates!

Somali pirates have been terrorising shipping and kidnapping crews for well over a decade.

However, this year we are seeing the positives of these pirates keeping away the foreign factory fishing trawlers from the shores of East Africa. Kenyan fishermen are reporting record hauls and are enjoying one of the best fishing seasons in almost a generation.

Scenes from HIA 09 Rotterdam

Gosh!

Was it only a week ago that we had a very successful and fun conference in Rotterdam, HIA '09 the 10th HIA conference.

It feels like yesterday!

Rotterdam is an amazing city because of the mix of industrial, commercial and shipping activities.

Check out the video (on 'knitworking') and photos of the conference and Rotterdam here.

Or play the slideshow by clicking here.

To view the longer video that shows how we got out of our 'knitwork' click here.

I particularly enjoyed the quantification sessions and the river cruise dinner in the evening. It was great to catch with people like B H-R. And it would have been great to have a day just catching up with people! Maybe next time...

The presentations should be up on the conference website anytime soon. Click here to go to it.

The next conference city is yet to be decided on and is likely to take place in 18 months time.

In the meantime you can think about going to the IAIA conference in Geneva 6-11th Apri 2010l. Click here for more details.

US Health Impact Project launches, with opportunities for funding

The Health Impact Project today released a call for proposals to fund up to 15 health impact assessments (HIAs) at the local, state and tribal levels. HIAs are a flexible, data-driven approach that identify the health consequences of new policies and programs, and develop practical strategies to maximize their health benefits and minimize adverse effects.

Grants will range from between $25,000 and $150,000 each. Government agencies, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations at all levels of policy and program development are encouraged to apply. The call for proposals and other information about the project is available at www.healthimpactproject.org

The last two decades of health research have demonstrated the profound importance of social, economic and environmental decisions to the health of Americans. To stem the rising tide of chronic disease and create safe, thriving communities, health needs to be factored into decisions that affect the public. HIAs provide an avenue to do just that. They are a valuable tool to help government and community leaders working across all sectors-from agriculture and food production to transportation and planning-make smart decisions that lead to healthier communities.

A collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Health Impact Project is a national initiative designed to promote the use of HIAs as a decision-making tool for policymakers.

Follow us on Twitter

In addition to the HIA Blog we also regularly update our Twitter account with HIA-related news and information. Follow us at:

twitter.com/hiablog

International Association for Impact Assessment Health Quarterly: Strange Days Indeed

The latest issue of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) Health Quarterly is available for download [PDF 447 Kb]:

http://bit.ly/iTOhr

This issue is on the theme of Strange Days Indeed and covers:

• The Economic Crisis and Public Health
• Responses to the H1N1 Pandemic
• The New Health Section Co-Chair
• Climate Change, Peak Oil and HIA
• IAIA09 in Ghana
• HIA Research in Ireland
• Dutch Intersectoral Policy Advice
• WHO Activity on Health and Development Lending
• HIA and Water Resources
• The Health Impacts of the Sydney Dust Storm

Ben Harris-Roxas
Quarterly Editor

Ben Cave and Francesca Viliani
IAIA Health Section Co-Chairs

Dust Storm Envelops Sydney: What are the health impacts?

Sydneysiders awoke to a red glow this morning and opened their curtains to find that the city had been shrouded in a dust storm, blown in by strong winds last night. Our clothesline was covered in red muddy lumps that were similar in shape to the clothes I’d hung out yesterday.

My mother-in-law called up to instruct us not to take the baby outside. “You don’t want her breathing that stuff!” I’m no respiratory expert, but I know that one-off exposure to dust of this nature was unlikely to cause enduring respiratory problems. A precautionary response doesn’t hurt however, and state health agencies have recommended that people stay inside. This did make me wonder, what are the health impacts of dust storms?

Dust storms may contain plant pollens, fungal spores, dried animal faeces, minerals, chemicals from fires and industry, bacteria and pesticide residues. These all have the potential to impact on human health. This is of particular concern in countries where there is increasing desertification and weak government regulation. The potential health impacts of dust itself are important - usually by exacerbating existing asthma. Dust storms have also led to algal blooms in some parts of the world, which in turn have a number of environmental and health impacts.

The psychological impacts of dust storms are worth mentioning as well. The Welsh HIA Support Unit conducted an HIA of a coal mine in Wales and found that it wasn’t particulates alone that could impact on people’s health (they've now done several HIAs on coal mines). The constant noise and dust undermined their mental health as well. Dust storms are far less constant so the extent won’t be so great, but already I’ve noticed a flurry of exclamations about the “end of the world” amongst my friends on facebook this morning. I think that if the storm goes on for several days some of these exclamations may become semi-serious.

Dust storms remind us that what happens in the outback has a very real effect on cities, as much as we might like to pretend it doesn’t. I lived in Bourke as a kid and dust storms were not an uncommon event. Maybe they’ll become semi-regular events in the Sydney of the future as well. I’ll have to start bringing the washing in.

This post first appeared on Croakey

New UNSW HIA eNews available

The latest issue of the UNSW Health Impact Assessment eNews is available for download from:

http://www.hiaconnect.edu.au/enews/HIA_eNews_22.pdf

In this issue:

Health Impact Assessment: From the Global to the Local

Community-Led Health Impact Assessment: The Goodooga Equity Focused HIA

Equity Focused HIA

HIA in North Queensland

Revamped HIA Connect Website

Western Australian HIA Network

Second Asia Pacific HIA Conference in Thailand

Second New Zealand HIA Practitioner Workshop

HIA Practice Standards Issued by North American Group

Forthcoming WHO Guide on Health in Development Lending

UNSW HIA Publications

Learning by Doing HIA Training Packages

What’s New?