The National Academies Press: Improving Health in The United States: The Role of Health Impact Assessment (2011)

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Improving Health in the United States: The Role of Health

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Improving Health in the United States: The Role of Health Impact Assessment
Committee on Health Impact Assessment
Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
Division on Earth and Life Studies
National Research Council
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Members
RICHARD J. JACKSON (Chair), University of California, Los Angeles

DINAH BEAR, Attorney at Law, Washington, DC
RAJIV BHATIA, San Francisco Department of Public Health; University
of California, San Francisco
SCOTT B. CANTOR, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
Center, Houston
BEN CAVE, Ben Cave Associates, Ltd., Leeds, United Kingdom
ANA V. DIEZ ROUX, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
CARLOS DORA, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
JONATHAN E. FIELDING, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health,
Los Angeles, CA
JOSHUA S. GRAFF ZIVIN, University of California, San Diego
JONATHAN I. LEVY, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA
JULIA B. QUINT, California Department of Public Health (retired), Berkeley
SAMINA RAJA, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo
AMY JO SCHULZ, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
AARON A. WERNHAM, Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, DC
Staff
ELLEN K. MANTUS, Project Director

HEIDI MURRAY-SMITH, Program Officer
KERI SCHAFFER, Research Associate
NORMAN GROSSBLATT, Senior Editor
MIRSADA KARALIC-LONCAREVIC, Manager, Technical Information Center
RADIAH ROSE, Manager, Editorial Projects
PANOLA GOLSON, Program Associate
Sponsors
ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION

CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES
U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND TOXICOLOGY1
Members
ROGENE F. HENDERSON (Chair), Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute,

Albuquerque, NM
PRAVEEN AMAR, Clean Air Task Force, Boston, MA
TINA BAHADORI, American Chemistry Council, Washington, DC
MICHAEL J. BRADLEY, M.J. Bradley & Associates, Concord, MA
JONATHAN Z. CANNON, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
GAIL CHARNLEY, HealthRisk Strategies, Washington, DC
FRANK W. DAVIS, University of California, Santa Barbara
RICHARD A. DENISON, Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC
CHARLES T. DRISCOLL, JR., Syracuse University, New York
H. CHRISTOPHER FREY, North Carolina State University, Raleigh
RICHARD M. GOLD, Holland & Knight, LLP, Washington, DC
LYNN R. GOLDMAN, George Washington University, Washington, DC
LINDA E. GREER, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC
WILLIAM E. HALPERIN, University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, Newark
PHILIP K. HOPKE, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY
HOWARD HU, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
SAMUEL KACEW, University of Ottawa, Ontario
ROGER E. KASPERSON, Clark University, Worcester, MA
THOMAS E. MCKONE, University of California, Berkeley
TERRY L. MEDLEY, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Wilmington, DE
JANA MILFORD, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder
FRANK O’DONNELL, Clean Air Watch, Washington, DC
RICHARD L. POIROT, Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, Waterbury
KATHRYN G. SESSIONS, Health and Environmental Funders Network,
Bethesda, MD
JOYCE S. TSUJI, Exponent Environmental Group, Bellevue, WA
Senior Staff
JAMES J. REISA, Director

DAVID J. POLICANSKY, Scholar
RAYMOND A. WASSEL, Senior Program Officer for Environmental Studies
SUSAN N.J. MARTEL, Senior Program Officer for Toxicology
ELLEN K. MANTUS, Senior Program Officer for Risk Analysis
EILEEN N. ABT, Senior Program Officer
RUTH E. CROSSGROVE, Senior Editor
MIRSADA KARALIC-LONCAREVIC, Manager, Technical Information Center
RADIAH ROSE, Manager, Editorial Projects
1
This study was planned, overseen, and supported by the Board on Environmental
Studies and Toxicology.
vi

OTHER REPORTS OF THE

BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND TOXICOLOGY
A Risk-Characterization Framework for Decision-Making at the Food and Drug

Administration (2011)
Review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Draft IRIS Assessment of
Formaldehyde (2011)
Toxicity-Pathway-Based Risk Assessment: Preparing for Paradigm Change (2010)
The Use of Title 42 Authority at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2010)
Review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Draft IRIS Assessment of
Tetrachloroethylene (2010)
Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use (2009)
Contaminated Water Supplies at Camp Lejeune—Assessing Potential Health
Effects (2009)
Review of the Federal Strategy for Nanotechnology-Related Environmental, Health,
and Safety Research (2009)
Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment (2009)
Phthalates and Cumulative Risk Assessment: The Tasks Ahead (2008)
Estimating Mortality Risk Reduction and Economic Benefits from Controlling Ozone
Air Pollution (2008)
Respiratory Diseases Research at NIOSH (2008)
Evaluating Research Efficiency in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2008)
Hydrology, Ecology, and Fishes of the Klamath River Basin (2008)
Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk
Assessment (2007)
Models in Environmental Regulatory Decision Making (2007)
Toxicity Testing in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision and a Strategy (2007)
Sediment Dredging at Superfund Megasites: Assessing the Effectiveness (2007)
Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects (2007)
Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of
Management and Budget (2007)
Assessing the Human Health Risks of Trichloroethylene: Key Scientific Issues (2006)
New Source Review for Stationary Sources of Air Pollution (2006)
Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Chemicals (2006)
Health Risks from Dioxin and Related Compounds: Evaluation of the EPA
Reassessment (2006)
Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards (2006)
State and Federal Standards for Mobile-Source Emissions (2006)
Superfund and Mining Megasites—Lessons from the Coeur d’Alene River Basin (2005)
Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion (2005)
Air Quality Management in the United States (2004)
Endangered and Threatened Species of the Platte River (2004)
Atlantic Salmon in Maine (2004)
Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin (2004)
Cumulative Environmental Effects of Alaska North Slope Oil and Gas
Development (2003)
Estimating the Public Health Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations (2002)
Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices (2002)
vii

The Airliner Cabin Environment and Health of Passengers and Crew (2002)
Arsenic in Drinking Water: 2001 Update (2001)
Evaluating Vehicle Emissions Inspection and Maintenance Programs (2001)
Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act (2001)
A Risk-Management Strategy for PCB-Contaminated Sediments (2001)
Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Selected Airborne Chemicals (ten
volumes, 2000-2011)
Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury (2000)
Strengthening Science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2000)
Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment (2000)
Ecological Indicators for the Nation (2000)
Waste Incineration and Public Health (2000)
Hormonally Active Agents in the Environment (1999)
Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter (four volumes, 1998-2004)
The National Research Council’s Committee on Toxicology: The First 50 Years (1997)
Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens in the Human Diet (1996)
Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest (1996)
Science and the Endangered Species Act (1995)
Wetlands: Characteristics and Boundaries (1995)
Biologic Markers (five volumes, 1989-1995)
Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment (1994)
Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children (1993)
Dolphins and the Tuna Industry (1992)
Science and the National Parks (1992)
Human Exposure Assessment for Airborne Pollutants (1991)
Rethinking the Ozone Problem in Urban and Regional Air Pollution (1991)
Decline of the Sea Turtles (1990)
Copies of these reports may be ordered from the National Academies Press
(800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313
www.nap.edu
viii

Preface
A growing body of evidence indicates that many factors outside the tradi-
tional health field affect public health. The idea that our health is determined
only by our own behavior, choices, and genetics is no longer tenable. Many now
recognize that substantial improvements in public health will occur only by en-
suring that health considerations are factored into projects, programs, plans, and
policies in non-health-related sectors, such as transportation, housing, agricul-
ture, and education.
Health impact assessment (HIA) is a tool that can help decision-makers
identify the public-health consequences of proposals that potentially affect
health. Because of the potential that HIA offers to improve public health, the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences, the California Endowment, and the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention asked the National Research Council to develop a
framework, terminology, and guidance for conducting HIA.
In this report, the Committee on Health Impact Assessment discusses the
need for health-informed decision-making and policies and reviews the current
practice of HIA. The committee provides a definition, framework, and criteria
for HIA; discusses issues in and challenges to the development and practice of
HIA; and closes with a discussion on structures and policies for promoting HIA.
The committee notes that the framework provided in this report is not a reinven-
tion of the field but a synthesis of guidance provided in other documents and
publications. Thus, the reader will find many similarities between the commit-
tee’s descriptions and characterizations and those of other guides.
The present report has been reviewed in draft form by persons chosen for
their diverse perspectives and technical expertise in accordance with procedures
approved by the National Research Council Report Review Committee. The
purpose of the independent review is to provide candid and critical comments
that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible
and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards of objectivity, evi-
dence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft
manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative proc-
ess. We thank the following for their review of this report: Jason Corburn, Uni-
ix

x Preface
versity of California, Berkeley; William H. Dow, University of California,

Berkeley; Jonathan C. Heller, Human Impact Partners; Murray Lee, Habitat
Health Impact Consulting; Jonathan Levine, University of Michigan; Linda A.
McCauley, Emory University; David O. Meltzer, University of Chicago; Keshia
M. Pollack, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Lindsay
Rosenfeld, Northeastern University; Alex Scott-Samuel, University of Liver-
pool; Nicholas C. Yost, SNR Denton; Lauren Zeise, California Environmental
Protection Agency.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive
comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or
recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release.
The review of the report was overseen by the review coordinator, Joseph V.
Rodricks, Environ, and the review monitor, Gilbert S. Omenn, University of
Michigan Medical School. Appointed by the National Research Council, they
were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of the re-
port was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all re-
view comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content
of the report rests entirely with the committee and the institution.
The committee gratefully acknowledges the following for their presenta-
tions: Marice Ashe, Public Health Law and Policy; John Balbus, National Insti-
tute of Environmental Health Sciences; Ronald Bass, ICF International; Larry
Cohen, Prevention Institute; Andrew Dannenberg, U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention; Paul Farmer, American Planning Association; Ed
Fogels, Alaska Department of Natural Resources; Robert Gould, Partnership for
Prevention; Ralph Keeney, Duke University; Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, U.S. Sen-
ate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Angelo Logan, East
Yard Communities for Environmental Justice; April Marchese, U.S. Department
of Transportation; John Norquist, Congress for the New Urbanism; Linda Ru-
dolph, California Department of Public Health; Pamela Russo, Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation; and Terry Williams, Tulalip Natural Resources Treaty
Rights Office.
The committee is also grateful for the assistance of the National Research
Council staff in preparing this report. Staff members who contributed to the ef-
fort are Ellen Mantus, project director; Heidi Murray-Smith, program officer;
Keri Schaffer, research associate; James Reisa, director of the Board on Envi-
ronmental Studies and Toxicology; Norman Grossblatt, senior editor; Mirsada
Karalic-Loncarevic, manager, Technical Information Center; Radiah Rose, man-
ager, editorial projects; and Panola Golson, program associate.
I would especially like to thank the members of the committee for their
efforts throughout the development of this report.
Richard J. Jackson, Chair


Contents
SUMMARY ........................................................................................................ 3
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 14
Health Impact Assessment, 14
The Committee’s Task and Approach, 18
Organization of Report, 19
References, 20
2 WHY WE NEED HEALTH-INFORMED POLICIES

AND DECISION-MAKING ............................................................. 23
Knowledge of Root Causes of Health Consequences, 25
Why Assess the Health Consequences of Policies,
Programs, Projects, and Planning Decisions?, 27
Why Assessments Are Not Being Conducted, 30
What are the Options for Assessment?, 31
Other Benefits of Systematic Assessment of Health Impacts, 33
Conclusions, 34
References, 35
3 ELEMENTS OF A HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT .............. 43

Categories of Health Impact Assessment, 44
Definition of Health Impact Assessment, 45
Who Conducts Health Impact Assessments?, 46
Process for Health Impact Assessment, 47
Summary: What Criteria Define a Health Impact Assessment?, 82
References, 83
4 CURRENT ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE

DEVELOPMENT AND PRACTICE OF HEALTH
IMPACT ASSESSMENT ................................................................. 90
Defining Health for Health Impact Assessment, 90
xi

xii Contents
Are All Decisions Potential Candidates for Health Impact

Assessment?, 92
Balancing the Need to Provide Timely, Valid Information
with the Realities of Varied Data Quality, 95
Benefits and Challenges of Quantitative Estimation, 99
Characterizing Multiple Health Effects, 101
Assigning Monetary Values to Health Consequences, 102
Valuing and Enabling Stakeholder Participation, 103
The Benefits of a Peer-Review Process for Health
Impact Assessment, 106
Minimizing Conflicts of Interest of Sponsors and Practitioners
of Health Impact Assessment, 107
Managing Expectations: Information May Not Change Decisions, 108
Advancing Requirements for Health Analysis in Environmental
Conclusions, 112
References, 114
5 STRUCTURES AND POLICIES FOR PROMOTING

HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT.............................................. 119
Structure and Policies to Support Health
Promotion of Education and Training in and Societal
Awareness of Health Impact Assessment, 124
Increase in Research and Scholarship in Health
Development of Resources to Support Health
References, 128
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX A: EXPERIENCES WITH HEALTH

IMPACT ASSESSMENT .............................................................................. 130
APPENDIX B: BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ON THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT........................... 178
APPENDIX C: STATEMENT OF TASK OF THE COMMITTEE

ON HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT ..................................................... 184
APPENDIX D: GLOSSARY......................................................................... 185

Contents xiii
APPENDIX E: SUMMARY OF HEALTH IMPACT

ASSESSMENT GUIDES .............................................................................. 196
APPENDIX F: ANALYSIS OF HEALTH EFFECTS UNDER

THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT............................ 204
BOXES, FIGURES, AND TABLES
BOXES
3-1 Screening: HIA of a Residential Housing Program, 50

3-2 Scoping: Atlanta BeltLine HIA, 56
3-3 Assessment: Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, 65
3-4 Examples of Health and Behavioral Effects That Have
Been Addressed Quantitatively in HIA, 67
3-5 HIA Recommendations, 69
3-6 Reporting: Legislation on Paid Sick Days, 74
A-1 European Union Members and When They Joined, 137
FIGURES
S-1 Framework for HIA, illustrating steps and outputs, 7

3-1 Example of a logic framework that maps out the possible
causal pathways by which health effects might occur, 54
A-1 Number of requests for consultation received by the
Québec Ministry of Health and Social Services, 2003-2008, 132
TABLES
1-1 Selected Definitions of Health Impact Assessment, 16

2-1 The Costs of Transportation-Related Health Outcomes, 2008, 29
3-1 Example of a Table Used for Systematic Scoping, 55
3-2 Example of a Matrix to Analyze Health Effects, 63
3-3 Example of a Table for Rating Importance of Health Effects, 64
4-1 Health Impact Assessment by Sector, 93
E-1 A Review of Health Impact Assessment Guides, 197
E-2 Health Impact Assessment Guides for Policies or Plans, 200




Summary
Many Americans believe that the United States has one of the best health-
care systems in the world and that consequently Americans enjoy better health
than most of the world’s populations. The data, however, do not support that
belief. In fact, the United States is ranked 32nd in the world in life expectancy
even though it is ranked third in total expenditures on health care as a percentage
of gross domestic product (GDP). Clearly, good health is determined by more
than money spent on the health-care system. In fact, a growing body of research
indicates that living conditions—including such factors as housing quality, ex-
posure to pollution, and access to healthy and affordable foods and safe places to
exercise—have a greater effect on health. That research highlights the impor-
tance of considering health in developing policies, programs, plans, and projects,
including ones that may not appear at first to have an obvious relationship
to health.
Health impact assessment (HIA) has arisen as an especially promising way
to factor health considerations into the decision-making process. It has been
defined in various ways but essentially is a structured process that uses scientific
data, professional expertise, and stakeholder input to identify and evaluate pub-
lic-health consequences of proposals and suggests actions that could be taken to
minimize adverse health impacts and optimize beneficial ones. HIA has been
used throughout the world to evaluate the potential health consequences of a
wide array of proposals that span many sectors and levels of government. Inter-
national organizations, such as the World Health Organization and multilateral
development banks, have also contributed to the development and evolution of
HIA, and countries and organizations have both developed their own guidance
on conducting HIA.
Although HIA has not been used widely by decision-makers in the United
States, its use has steadily increased over the last 10 years. Local, state, and
tribal health departments have conducted HIAs to inform decision-making in
other agencies; community-based organizations have conducted HIAs with input
from public-health experts to inform officials who are deliberating on legislative
or administrative proposals; planning and transportation departments have con-
ducted HIAs to inform their own decisions; and private consultants have con-

4 Improving Health in the U.S.: The Role of Health Impact Assessment
ducted HIAs for industry to determine the potential health consequences of vari-
ous projects. Given the potential health benefits of HIA, the Robert Wood John-
son Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the
California Endowment, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
asked the National Research Council (NRC) to develop a framework, terminol-
ogy, and guidance for conducting HIA of proposed policies, programs, and pro-
jects at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels, including the private sector. As
a result of that request, NRC convened the Committee on Health Impact As-
sessment, which prepared this report.
THE NEED FOR HEALTH-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING
The U.S. population clearly has not reached its full health potential despite
major medical advances and large expenditures on health care. Almost 50% of
adults suffer from at least one chronic illness, and obesity, which contributes to
many health conditions, has grown to epidemic proportions in children and
adults. Poor health has implications not only for the quality and duration of life
but for the economy. Health-care spending accounted for 7% of U.S. GDP in
1970, accounted for 16% of GDP in 2008, and is projected to account for almost
20% by 2019. Poor health also results in reduced participation in and productiv-
ity of the labor force. Thus, the consequences of chronic illness are huge in suf-
fering and monetary and business costs.
Many scientists, policy-makers, and others recognize that health is deter-
mined by multiple factors, including factors that shape the conditions in which
people are born, grow, live, work, and age. Policies and programs that have his-
torically not been recognized as related to health are now known or thought to
have important health consequences. For example, public health has been linked
to housing policies that determine the quality and location of housing develop-
ments, to transportation policies that affect the availability of public transporta-
tion, to urban planning policies that determine land use and street connectivity,
to agricultural policies that influence the availability of various types of food,
and to economic-development policies that affect the location of businesses and
industry. The recognition that health is shaped by a broad array of factors em-
phasizes the importance of understanding the possible health consequences of
decision-making. In fact, it can be argued that major improvements in public
health cannot be achieved without considering the root causes of ill health. In-
deed, it has been argued that major health problems, such as the obesity epi-
demic and its associated health and monetary costs, are essentially unintended
consequences of various social and policy factors related, for example, to the
mass production and distribution of energy-dense foods and the engineering of
physical activity out of daily life through changes in how transportation is or-
ganized and how neighborhoods are designed and built.
Accordingly, systematic assessment of the health consequences of poli-
cies, programs, plans, and projects is critically important for protecting and

Summary 5
promoting public health; as indicated, lack of assessment can have many unex-
pected adverse health (and economic) consequences. One striking example is
development of the transportation infrastructure in the United States. In 1956,
Congress passed the Interstate Highway Act, which resulted in a transportation
infrastructure focused on road-building and private automobile use and has
shaped land-use patterns throughout the country. The emphasis on motorized
transportation has been associated with more driving, less physical activity,
higher rates of obesity, higher rates of air pollution, and transportation injuries
and fatalities. A partial accounting of the costs of health outcomes wholly or
partly associated with transportation indicates that the costs could be as great as
$400 billion annually. No one can know how much the costs could have been
reduced if health had been integrated into the decision-making. Without a sys-
tematic assessment, the health-related effects and their costs to individuals and
society are hidden or invisible products of transportation-related decisions.
Several approaches, methods, or tools could be used to incorporate aspects
of health into decision-making, but HIA holds particular promise because of its
applicability to a broad array of policies, programs, plans, and projects; its con-
sideration of adverse and beneficial health effects; its ability to consider and
incorporate various types of evidence; and its engagement of communities and
stakeholders in a deliberative process. The following sections define and de-
scribe the elements of HIA, the challenges to its practice, and the approaches to
advancing it and integrating it into today’s decision-making processes.
DEFINING HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND ITS ELEMENTS
On the basis of its review of HIA definitions, practice, published guidance,

and peer-reviewed literature, the committee recommends the following technical
definition of HIA, which is adapted from the definition of the International As-
sociation for Impact Assessment:
HIA is a systematic process that uses an array of data sources and analytic
methods and considers input from stakeholders to determine the potential
effects of a proposed policy, plan, program, or project on the health of a
population and the distribution of those effects within the population. HIA
provides recommendations on monitoring and managing those effects.
The committee emphasizes that HIA is conducted to inform a decision-making

process and is intended to be concluded and communicated in advance of a deci-
sion so that the information that it yields can be used to shape a final proposal in
such a way that adverse effects are minimized and beneficial ones are optimized.
The committee acknowledges that other assessment methods may share some
features with HIA, but they do not meet the definition and description of HIA
that the committee provides in the present report.

The committee found remarkable consistency regarding the basic elements

that are generally included in descriptions of HIA, although they may be organ-
ized differently in the stages or steps that are outlined. The committee recom-
mends a six-step framework as the clearest way to organize and describe the
elements of HIA. The steps and their outputs are illustrated in Figure S-1; the
committee’s conclusions regarding each step are provided below.
Screening establishes the need for and value of conducting an HIA and is
essential for high-quality HIA practice. The committee concludes that the fol-
lowing factors are the most important to consider in determining whether to
conduct an HIA: the potential for substantial adverse or beneficial health effects
or irreversible or catastrophic effects, even if the effects have a low likelihood;
the ability of information from the HIA to alter a decision or help a decision-
maker to discriminate among options; the possibility that a disproportionate bur-
den of the health effects is placed on vulnerable populations; the existence of
public concern or controversy regarding health effects of a proposal; the oppor-
tunity to incorporate health information into a decision-making process that may
not otherwise include such information; and the ability of the HIA team to com-
plete the assessment within the time and with the resources available.
Scoping identifies the populations that might be affected, determines
which health effects will be evaluated in the HIA, identifies research questions
and develops plans to address them, identifies the data and methods to be used
and alternatives to be assessed, and establishes the HIA team and a plan for
stakeholder participation throughout the HIA process. The credibility of an HIA
and its relevance to the decision-making process rest on a systematic evaluation
of the full array of potential effects—risks, benefits, and tradeoffs—rather than
on a narrow consideration of a subset of issues predetermined by a team’s re-
search interests or regulatory requirements. However, to ensure judicious use of
resources, the HIA should ultimately focus on the health effects of greatest po-
tential importance. The committee notes that it is appropriate to include issues
that are the subject of community concern even if they appear unlikely to be
substantiated by further analysis; such an analysis can provide reassurance to
communities even if the eventual conclusions do not support their concerns.
Assessment is a process that involves describing the baseline health status
of the affected populations and then characterizing the expected effects on
health (and its determinants) of the proposal and each alternative under consid-
eration relative to the baseline and each other. In light of the various policies,
programs, plans, and projects that are the subject of HIAs, a broad array of data
and analytic methods are used to evaluate the potential effects. Often, complete
information is not available, and expert judgment plays an important role in the
HIA. Whatever approach is taken, an explicit statement of data sources, meth-
ods, assumptions, and uncertainty is essential. The committee notes that uncer-
tainty does not negate the value of information. Even when the evidence of an
effect is uncertain, describing the potential causal pathways that are based on a

Summary 7
reasonable interpretation of available data and expert judgment can help to es-
tablish a framework for monitoring and managing any impacts that might occur
as the proposal is implemented.
STEPS OUTPUTS
• Describes proposed policy, program, plan, or project, including
timeline for decision and political and policy context.
• Presents preliminary opinion on importance of proposal for health
Screening and the opportunities for HIA to inform the decision, and states why
the proposal was selected for screening.
• Outlines expected resource requirements to conduct HIA.
• Provides recommendation on whether HIA is warranted.
• Summarizes pathways and health effects to be addressed, and

provides rationale for those included and excluded.
• Identifies affected populations and vulnerable groups.
Scoping • Describes research questions, data sources, the analytic plan,
data gaps, and how gaps will be addressed.
• Identifies alternatives to the proposed action to be assessed.
• Summarizes stakeholder engagement, issues raised by
stakeholders, and responses to those issues.
• Describes the baseline health status of affected populations.

• Analyzes and characterizes beneficial and adverse health effects
of the proposal and each alternative.
• Describes data sources and analytic methods used.
Assessment
• Documents stakeholder engagement and integrates input into
analyses.
• Identifies clearly the limitations and uncertainties of the analysis.
• Identifies alternatives to proposal or actions that could be taken to

avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects and to optimize
Recommendations beneficial ones.
• Proposes a health-management plan to identify stakeholders who
could implement recommendations, indicators for monitoring, and
systems for verification.
• Provides clear documentation of the proposal analyzed, the

population affected, stakeholder engagement, data sources and
Reporting analytic methods used, findings, and recommendations.
• Communicates findings and recommendations to decision-
makers, the public, and other stakeholders in a form that can be
integrated with other decision-making factors (technical, social,
political, and economic).
• Tracks changes in health indicators or implementation of HIA

recommendations.
Monitoring • Evaluates (a) whether the HIA was conducted according to its
and plan and applicable standards (process evaluation), (b) whether
Evaluation the HIA influenced the decision-making process (impact
evaluation), and (c) when practicable, whether implementation of
the proposal changed health indicators (outcome evaluation).
FIGURE S-1 Framework for HIA, illustrating steps and outputs.

Recommendations identify alternatives to the proposal or specific actions

that could be taken to avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects or to take
advantage of opportunities for a proposal to improve health. Relatively little
attention has been paid to the formulation of effective, actionable recommenda-
tions, and the committee offers three points for consideration. First, community
input is essential for proposals that could have localized effects because it helps
to ensure that specific aspects of living conditions and community design that
may not be obvious to outside researchers are considered, and it maximizes the
probability that the affected community will accept the conclusions and recom-
mendations of the assessment. Second, recommendations are effective only if
they are adopted by a decision-maker and implemented. The chances that the
recommendations are adopted and implemented will increase if measures are
drafted to address identified public-health risks; recognize feasibility issues,
practical challenges, and other concerns possibly raised by the decision-maker
during the HIA process; and fulfill the requirements of the legal and policy
framework governing the decision. Third, recommendations should include the
elements of a health-management plan that identifies appropriate indicators for
monitoring, an entity with authority or ability to implement each measure, and a
mechanism for verifying implementation and compliance. In practice, the HIA
team will be asking a decision-maker to consider the findings and recommenda-
tions; ultimately, the decision-maker must balance health considerations with the
many other technical, social, political, and economic concerns that bear on the
proposal.
Reporting is the communication of findings and recommendations to deci-
sion-makers, the public, and other stakeholders. At present, there is little uni-
formity in the content of an HIA report. The committee recommends that, at a
minimum, the written HIA report describe the proposed action or policy and
alternatives that are the subject of the HIA, document the data sources and ana-
lytic methods used, identify the people consulted during the HIA process, and
provide a clear, concise, and easily understood description of the process, find-
ings, and recommendations. Furthermore, the reports should be made publicly
available. A well-designed dissemination strategy is critical for the success of an
HIA, and continuing efforts to inform decision-makers and stakeholders of the
findings and recommendations are essential. However, efforts to support health-
based recommendations must be carefully distinguished from biased efforts to
promote a specific alternative on the basis of a skewed comparison of favorable
and unfavorable aspects of a proposal or a predetermined political agenda. Un-
due bias in an HIA will likely compromise its credibility and efficacy.
Monitoring and evaluation can be characterized by several activities.
Monitoring can consist of tracking the adoption and implementation of HIA
recommendations or tracking changes in health indicators (health outcomes or
health determinants) as a new policy, program, plan, or project is implemented.
Evaluation can be process evaluation (evaluation of whether the HIA was con-
ducted according to its plan of action and applicable standards), impact evalua-
tion (evaluation of whether the HIA influenced the decision-making process), or

Summary 9
outcome evaluation (evaluation of whether implementation of the proposal

changes health outcomes or health determinants). Few HIA evaluation data have
been published in the United States or elsewhere, and it is not reasonable to ex-
pect that decision-makers will adopt HIA widely in the absence of evidence of
its effectiveness and value. Consequently, the committee concludes that the lack
of attention to evaluation is a barrier that will need to be overcome if HIA is to
be advanced in the United States and notes that unbiased evaluation of its effec-
tiveness and value will require participation of evaluators independent of the
HIA team, stakeholders, decision-makers, and fiscal sponsors.
The committee emphasizes that the definitions and criteria recommended
here should not be considered rigid requirements but rather reflect an ideal of
practice. Given the broad array of applications and the resources and time avail-
able for HIA, deviations are expected, but they should be justified by a clear and
well-articulated rationale. The committee also notes that HIA should not be as-
sumed to be the best approach to every health-policy question but should be
seen as part of a spectrum of public-health and policy-oriented approaches; the
most appropriate will depend on the situation and decision-making context.
CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The committee identified several challenges for the successful emergence,

development, and practice of HIA. Many are related to various aspects of HIA
practice and are noted below with the committee’s suggestions for possible reso-
lutions.
Defining health and the boundaries for HIA. As noted above, there is a
growing consensus that individual health and public health are shaped by ge-
netic, behavioral, social, economic, and environmental factors. Therefore, the
committee concludes that HIA practice should not be restricted by a narrow
definition of health or restricted to any particular policy sector (for example,
education, urban planning, or finance), level of government (federal, state, tribal,
or local), type of proposal (policy, program, project, or plan), or specific health
outcome or issue (for example, asthma or obesity). There is no evidence to sug-
gest that HIA is more important, appropriate, or effective in any particular deci-
sion context. On the contrary, HIA may be useful in a broad array of decision
contexts, including many decision types to which it has not yet been applied.
Accordingly, HIA should be focused on applications that present the greatest
opportunity to protect or promote health and to raise awareness of the health
consequences of decision-making. Because there are few legal mandates for
HIA in the United States, it is most often conducted as a voluntary practice. As
such, it will be difficult to ensure that decisions that could have the greatest im-
pact on health are selected for evaluation. Thus, the current ad hoc approach to
conducting HIA may result in less useful applications. The committee concludes
that any future policies, standards, or regulations for HIA should include explicit
criteria for identifying and screening candidate decisions and rules for providing

oversight for the HIA process; such criteria and rules would promote the utility,
validity, and sustainability of HIA practice.
Balancing the need to provide timely, valid information with the realities
of varying data quality. HIA must provide evidence-based findings and recom-
mendations within the practical realities and timelines of the decision-making
process; however, HIA practitioners often face substantial challenges regarding
data availability and quality.1 The committee offers three strategies to maximize
the validity of findings and recommendations in light of data constraints. First,
one should consider diverse types of evidence and use expertise from multiple
disciplines. Second, one should critically evaluate the data quality and select the
evidence and analytic methods that are the strongest from among those available
for a particular decision and context. There are no uniform standards for evaluat-
ing all potential evidence used in HIA, given the diverse applications and het-
erogeneity of data; in the future, criteria for data quality could be developed to
characterize the relative strength of evidence and the nature and magnitude of
uncertainties. Third, a strategy for assessing, acknowledging, and managing un-
certainties is essential for ensuring the credibility of HIA findings and recom-
mendations.
Producing quantitative estimates of health effects. Many expect HIA to
produce quantitative estimates of health effects. Quantitative estimates of health
effects have a number of desirable properties: they provide an indication of the
magnitude of health effects, they can be easily compared with existing numeri-
cal criteria or thresholds that define the significance of particular effects, they
allow one to make more direct comparisons among alternatives, and they pro-
vide inputs for economic valuation. They can be produced when there has been
sufficient empirical research on relationships between particular determinants
and health outcomes. Relying exclusively on quantitative estimation in HIA,
however, presents some drawbacks. First, quantification has high information
requirements. Given the breadth of health effects potentially considered in HIA,
the sparse data available to support quantitative approaches, and the variability
in practitioner capacity, it would be challenging or impossible for all HIAs to
predict all potentially important health effects quantitatively. Second, because
quantification can be resource-intensive, it may require more time than is practi-
cal, given the timeline for decision-making. Third, quantitative estimates may
create an unwarranted impression of objectivity, precision, and importance and
lead a reader to give credence to quantified results even if assumptions used in
the analysis were based on subjective choices. Overall, however, quantitative
estimates of health effects have value and should be provided when the data and
resources allow and when they are responsive to decision-makers’ and stake-
holders’ information needs.
Synthesizing conclusions on dissimilar health effects. Given that HIA ana-
lyzes multiple health effects, a practical challenge is synthesizing and presenting
results on dissimilar health effects in a manner that is intelligible and useful to
1
In this report, the term HIA practitioners refers to the people conducting the HIA.

Summary 11
decision-makers and stakeholders. Although summary measures have not been

commonly used in HIA practice, they can be used to translate estimated effects
on disparate health outcomes into a single comparable unit, such as quality-
adjusted life years, disability-adjusted life years, and healthy-years equivalent.
Calculating summary measures, however, requires assumptions and weighting
schemes that need to be recognized and explained, and summary measures may
not allow the integration of all health effects. Therefore, if summary measures
are used, the committee recommends that effects—including those excluded
from the summary measure—be described and characterized separately with
regard to magnitude and significance in a way that allows users to judge their
cumulative nature. The relative value of dissimilar health effects can then be
considered explicitly or implicitly in the decision-making process.
Engaging stakeholders. Ensuring that stakeholders are able to participate
effectively in the HIA process is widely described as an essential element of
practice, although stakeholders often are not engaged or are only minimally en-
gaged in the process. That discrepancy can be attributed to several factors, in-
cluding the time and resources available; the methods, guidance, and standards
used to conduct HIA; the importance that the practitioner or sponsor places on
stakeholder participation; and a view that stakeholder participation may interfere
with or impede progress. However, stakeholder participation is critical for the
quality and effectiveness of the HIA. It helps to identify important issues; focus
the HIA scope; highlight local conditions, health issues, and potential effects
that may not be obvious to practitioners from outside the community; and ensure
that recommendations are realistic and practical. Thus, whenever possible,
strategies for stakeholder participation should extend beyond some minimal ef-
fort and address barriers and challenges to participation.
Ensuring the quality and credibility of HIA. Although HIA is different
from primary scientific research, the committee concludes that several aspects of
the HIA process could benefit from peer review. Peer review could highlight
overlooked issues, identify opportunities to improve data or methods, and in-
crease the legitimacy of conclusions and their acceptance and utility in the deci-
sion-making process. A formal peer-review process would need to overcome
several obstacles, such as the possible difficulties in assembling the multidisci-
plinary team that would be needed to perform the review, the substantial delays
that could occur in the process, and the current lack of agreed-on evaluation cri-
teria. However, HIA is often conducted on proposals that are contested among
polarized and disparate interests and stakeholders, and accusations of bias can
arise. Independent peer review could help to ensure that the process by which
HIA is conducted and the conclusions and recommendations produced are as
impartial, credible, and scientifically valid as possible. The committee notes,
however, that some flexibility in the peer-review process would be necessary
particularly for cases in which an HIA must be completed rapidly to be relevant
to the decision that it is intended to inform.
Managing expectations. HIA clearly is intended to inform decisions and
ultimately to shape policy, programs, plans, and projects so that adverse health

effects are minimized and potential health benefits are optimized. The hope is
that identifying valid information on a decision’s harms or benefits to health will
motivate decision-makers to take protective actions. However, health typically is
only one factor in the decision-making process; practical factors—such as cost,
feasibility, and regulatory authority—also play a prominent role. And improved
knowledge alone cannot necessarily change the ideology, interests, and attitudes
of decision-makers. Thus, it is not reasonable to consider HIA successful only if
it changes decisions. Furthermore, looking at HIA only as a mechanism for ad-
vocacy will compromise the support for and legitimacy of the practice.
Integrating HIA into environmental impact assessment (EIA). The U.S.
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and some related state laws explic-
itly require the identification and analysis of health effects when EIA is con-
ducted. EIA, however, has traditionally included at most only a cursory analysis
of health effects. Some argue that health analysis should be integrated into EIA
because NEPA and related state laws provide a mechanism for achieving the
same substantive goals as HIA. Others contend that EIA has become too rigid to
accommodate a comprehensive health analysis and that attention should be fo-
cused on the independent practice of HIA. The committee emphasizes that the
appropriate assessment of direct, indirect, and cumulative health effects in EIA
under NEPA is a matter of law and not discretion, and recent efforts have suc-
cessfully integrated the HIA framework into EIA. Thus, where legal standards
under NEPA or applicable state EIA laws require an integrated analysis of
health effects, one should be conducted with the same procedures that would be
used to assess any other required factor. Because the steps and approaches of
HIA and EIA are compatible, HIA offers an appropriate way to meet the re-
quirement for health analysis under NEPA and related state laws. Although there
are some substantive challenges to overcome, the committee concludes that im-
proving the integration of health into EIA practice under NEPA and related state
laws is needed and would advance the goal of improving public health.
ADVANCING HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Substantial improvements in public health will require a focused effort to

recognize and address the health consequences of decisions made at all levels
and in all sectors of government. As noted, HIA is a particularly promising ap-
proach for integrating health implications into decision-making. International
experience and the limited (but growing) experience in the United States provide
important clues as to what is needed most to advance HIA.
Societal awareness of and education in HIA. First, the common belief that
our health depends only on genetic predisposition, health care, and personal
choice is impeding the improvement of public health. Policy-makers and the
public need to be educated in the many factors that can affect health, the impor-
tance of considering them in all decision-making, and the role that HIA can play
in the decision-making process. An education campaign will be necessary to

Summary 13
secure the resources that will be needed for the development of HIA practice.
Second, few U.S. academic institutions offer formal education in HIA. Conse-
quently, there are few professionally trained HIA practitioners in the country,
and there is little agreement among them as to what constitutes good practice.
High-quality education and training will be vital for the advancement of HIA in
the United States. Third, continuing education of HIA professionals, policy-
makers, and the public will be important for improving the quality of HIA prac-
tice in this country. The committee notes that a professional association or soci-
ety could facilitate continuing education and develop, monitor, and facilitate
standards of professional education and practice in HIA.
Structures and policies to support HIA. First, substantial interagency col-
laboration at the local, state, and federal levels is necessary to conduct HIA of
policies, programs, plans, and projects, especially those emanating from non-
health sectors, such as transportation, finance, urban planning, education, and
agriculture. Such collaboration is essential, given the resource-constrained envi-
ronments in which makers of public policy and other officials often work. The
committee offers several suggestions for promoting interagency collaboration in
the present report. Second, systematic use of HIA ultimately will depend on the
adoption of policies and legal mandates to integrate health considerations into
decision-making. As noted above, NEPA requires the analysis of health effects
when EIA is conducted, but the spirit of the requirement needs to be reinvigo-
rated and strengthened. Explicit guidance demonstrating how health considera-
tions could be incorporated into NEPA would be beneficial. The committee em-
phasizes that policies and legislation outside the context of NEPA will most
likely be needed to facilitate the use of HIA.
Research on and scholarship in HIA. First, few evaluations of HIA effec-
tiveness have been conducted in the United States, especially because it has
emerged so recently. Because conducting HIA will probably require the invest-
ment of substantial public and private resources, research is needed to document
HIA practices and their effectiveness in influencing decision-making processes
and promoting public health. Second, the quality of HIA could be substantially
improved if there were better evidence on the relationship of “distal” factors to
health outcomes. For example, research on how health is affected by federal,
state, and local policies and actions traditionally considered to be unrelated to
health—such as transportation, agriculture, education, housing, financial, and
immigration policies—would be extremely beneficial.
The recognition that health is affected by much more than medical care,
personal choice and behavior, and genetic predisposition is fundamental for the
development and implementation of strategies to improve public health. How-
ever, the mere promulgation of a legal requirement to consider health would
most likely not result in the health improvements that the United States needs. A
tool, method, or approach is needed to facilitate the integration of health into
decision-making. HIA is particularly promising in light of its broad applicabil-
ity, its focus on adverse and beneficial health effects, its ability to incorporate
various types of evidence, and its emphasis on stakeholder participation.

Introduction
There is growing evidence that our social, economic, and physical envi-
ronments affect public health. Thus, our health is affected by how buildings and
communities are designed, where roadways are located, and what economic,
agricultural, and educational policies and programs are implemented. Health can
no longer be seen solely as the result of personal choice and behavior. The task
of integrating health considerations into such a breadth of activities is potentially
daunting. However, a new field—health impact assessment (HIA)—can assist
decision-makers in examining the potential health effects of proposed projects,
programs, plans, and policies. It has gained momentum internationally, although
it is not yet widely used in the United States. Some attribute the difference to the
absence of a uniform framework and guidance for conducting such assessments.
Given the potential of HIA to improve public health, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (RWJF), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
(NIEHS), the California Endowment, and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to develop a
framework, terminology, and guidance for conducting HIA. As a result of that
request, NRC convened the Committee on Health Impact Assessment, which
prepared this report.
HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The idea that many factors outside the traditional health field affect public
health is not new. In fact, the decrease in mortality from infectious disease in the
19th and 20th centuries and the increase in life expectancy are attributed more to
such factors as better nutrition, housing, and sanitation than to advances in
medicine (McKeown 1979). Studies have demonstrated the relatively small in-
fluence of the medical practice on public health as opposed to the substantial
effect of living conditions (Kemm and Parry 2004). Accordingly, many have
recognized that improvements in public health will occur only if health consid-
14

Introduction 15
erations are factored into projects, programs, plans, and policies in non-health-
related sectors, such as transportation, housing, agriculture, and education
(Kemm and Parry 2004; Cole and Fielding 2007).
Given the studies of the determinants of public health, a new field, HIA,
arose in the 1980s and 1990s. The most commonly cited definition of HIA was
provided in what is known as the Gothenburg consensus paper:
A combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, pro-

gramme or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of
a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population
(WHO 1999, p. 4).
Other definitions have arisen over the decades, and several examples are pro-
vided in Table 1-1. As shown, HIA has been defined in various ways and de-
scribed by such terms as method, process, approach, tool, and framework. Di-
verse practices have been associated with HIA, and that diversity has been
attributed somewhat to how health has been defined (or not defined) by the vari-
ous governments and organizations that use HIA. Parry and Kemm (2004),
however, asserted that the essential features of HIA are predicting the conse-
quences of various options and educating and assisting decision-makers.
The International Experience
HIA has been used throughout the world to evaluate the potential health
consequences of various projects, programs, plans, and policies (see Appendix
A for discussion of the international experience in implementing HIA). Europe
and such countries as Canada, Australia, and Thailand—and states, provinces,
and territories in these countries—have used various approaches to introducing
and promoting HIA. Some have integrated it into existing environmental-
assessment frameworks or practices, and others have established it as a stand-
alone or distinct process. Some have tried to legislate its use, and others have
relied on voluntary processes in which various degrees of government support
and resources are provided. Each country’s experience offers different perspec-
tives and lessons to be learned. For example, although the experience in a few
countries has suggested that legislation is needed to provide an impetus for con-
ducting HIA, the experience in many other countries has emphasized that legis-
lative requirements alone are not sufficient to ensure its consistent implementa-
tion. Education, training, and resources appear to be critical to the success of its
use, and engaging traditionally non-health-related sectors and agencies and
heightening awareness of HIA also appear to be key.
International organizations have contributed to the development and evo-
lution of HIA. Over the last few decades, the World Health Organization has
supported the development and use of HIA through declarations, initiatives,

TABLE 1-1 Selected Definitions of Health Impact Assessmenta

Definition Reference
“Any combination of procedures or methods by which a proposed Frankish et al. 1996
policy or program may be judged as to the effects it may have on
the health of a population.”
“A methodology which enables the identification, prediction and British Medical

evaluation of the likely changes in health risk, both positive and Association 1998, p. 39
negative, (single or collective), of a policy, programme, plan or
development action on a defined population. These changes may
be direct and immediate, or indirect and delayed.”
“The estimation of the effects of a specified action on the health of Scott-Samuel 1998,
a defined population.” p. 704
“A method of evaluating the likely effects of policies, initiatives Scottish Office

and activities on health at a population level and helping to develop Department of Health
recommendations to maximise health gain and minimise health 1999, Section 98
risks. It offers a framework within which to consider, and influence,
the broad determinants of health.”
“A means of evidence based policy making for improvement Scott Samuel 1997 in
in health. It is a combination of methods whose aim is to assess Lock 2000, p. 1395
the health consequences to a population of a policy, project, or
programme that does not necessarily have health as its primary
objective.”
“A multidisciplinary process within which a range of evidence Grant et al. 2001, p. 1

about the health effects of a proposal is considered in a structured
framework…based on a broad model of health, which proposes
that economic, political, social, psychological, and environmental
factors determine population health.”
“A developing approach that can help to identify and consider the Taylor and Quigley
potential—or actual—health impacts of a proposal on a population. 2002, p. 2-3
Its primary output is a set of evidence-based recommendations
geared to informing the decision making process.”
“A structured framework to map the full range of health WHO 2002, p. 2

consequences of any proposal, whether these are negative or
positive. It helps clarify the expected health implications of a
given action, and of any alternatives being considered, for the
population groups affected by the proposals. It allows health to
be considered early in the process of policy development and
so helps ensure that health impacts are not overlooked.”
(Continued)

Introduction 17
TABLE 1-1 Continued

Definition Reference
“A combination of procedures, methods and tools that Quigley et al. 2006,
systematically judges the potential, and sometimes p. 1
unintended, effects of a policy, plan, programme or project on
the health of a population and the distribution of those effects
within the population. HIA identifies appropriate actions to manage
those effects.”
“A combination of procedures, methods, and tools to assess the IFC 2009, p. 4

potential health impacts of a project on nearby populations, and to
recommend mitigation measures. HIA addresses both negative and
positive aspects of health. HIA will also try to identify benefits to
health that may be enhanced.”
a
Key phrases have been highlighted in the definitions to indicate the various ways that
HIA has been defined.
Sources: Krieger et al. 2003; Kemm and Parry 2004.
conferences, workshops, and networks (Cole and Fielding 2007; Forsyth et al.
2010). Its work was driven initially by the need to incorporate HIA into envi-
ronmental assessments of water-management projects but soon broadened to
encourage the use of HIA to define healthy public policies. Multilateral devel-
opment banks and the International Finance Corporation have also contributed
to the development of HIA; many have now adopted standards that include re-
quirements to conduct HIA for projects submitted for funding (IFC 2009;
Krieger et al. 2010; Harris-Roxas and Harris 2011).
Many countries and organizations have developed their own guidance on
conducting HIA (for example, B.C. Ministry of Health 1994; Fehr 1999; NHS
2000; enHealth 2001; Abrahams et al. 2004; PHAC 2005; Quigley et al. 2006;
Harris et al. 2007; IFC 2009; Metcalfe et al. 2009). Regardless of the similarity
of the guidance, some have observed that no consistent approach or methods
have been used (Kemm 2007; Bhatia 2010). Others have concluded that the cri-
teria for initiating, conducting, and completing HIA need to be clarified (Krieger
et al. 2003) and that terminology needs to be standardized (Kemm and Parry
2004). After reviewing numerous examples of HIA, Parry and Kemm (2004, p.
417) concluded that improvements are needed “in terms of methodological tech-
niques and practical application if [HIA] is to truly fulfill its promise and be-
come a useful adjunct to decision making.”
Health Impact Assessment in the United States
In the United States, HIA as a practice independent of environmental or

other regulatory impact assessment was first used in San Francisco in 1999 to
evaluate a policy to increase the minimum wage (Bhatia and Katz 2001). Al-
though not widely or commonly practiced, HIA has been used in all levels of

government and across the country to evaluate health impacts of proposed pro-
jects, policies, plans, and programs. Much of the activity, however, has been
centered on local communities, has focused on policies and programs associated
with land-use, housing, and transportation planning, and has been sponsored by
local public-health and planning agencies, nonprofit organizations, and aca-
demic institutions. Several academic institutions—notably the University of
California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles—have
helped to advance HIA at the local level by providing training and technical
assistance and by developing methods and approaches for conducting HIA.
At the state level, Washington and Massachusetts have passed legislation
to support HIA, and several other states—including California, Maryland, Min-
nesota, and West Virginia—have proposed legislation. Even without legislation,
several states—such as Hawaii, Alaska, California, Wisconsin, and Oregon—
have been conducting and using HIA to evaluate proposed projects, programs,
plans, and policies.
At the federal level, the use of HIA has been largely in the context of im-
plementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires fed-
eral agencies to evaluate the health effects of proposed federal actions [42 U.S.C
§§ 4321-4347]. However, the analysis of human health effects has historically
been minimized in assessments conducted under NEPA. Several factors—
including the lack of focus of early legal claims on human health, misinterpreta-
tion of case law, and the lack of involvement of traditionally health-related mu-
nicipal, state, tribal, or federal agencies in the NEPA process—contributed to the
de-emphasis of human health effects. That situation has changed recently with
work conducted by native Alaskans to incorporate health, social, and cultural
effects into NEPA documents for oil- and gas-leasing programs and leasing
sales (BLM 2007; MMS 2007a,b; EPA 2009). That activity has focused atten-
tion on and promoted interest in HIA in various federal agencies (see Appendix
A for further details on the HIA experience in the United States).
THE COMMITTEE’S TASK AND APPROACH
The committee that was convened in response to the request by RWJF,

NIEHS, the California Endowment, and CDC includes experts in HIA, envi-
ronmental impact assessment, public health, epidemiology, urban planning, so-
cial sciences, economics, and decision and risk analysis (see Appendix B for
biographies of the committee members). The committee was asked specifically
to develop a framework, terminology, and guidance for conducting HIA of pro-
posed policies, programs, and projects at federal, state, tribal, and local levels,
including the private sector. The committee was to assess the value and potential
value of such assessments; the impediments and countervailing factors that have
limited the practice of HIA to date; the circumstances and criteria for conducting
HIA; the concepts, tools, and information required; and the types, structure, and
content of HIA. On the basis of those considerations, the committee was to de-

Introduction 19
velop a systematic conceptual framework and approach for improving the as-
sessment of health impacts in the United States (see Appendix C for the commit-
tee’s statement of task).
To accomplish its task, the committee held five meetings. During the first
three, public sessions were held in which the committee heard presentations by
the sponsors and invited speakers in federal, state, and tribal government; aca-
deme; professional associations; nonprofit organizations; and consulting firms.
The committee reviewed numerous publications on HIA and considered the ex-
perience of various countries and organizations in implementing HIA. A sum-
mary of the committee’s review of HIA experience is provided in Appendix A.
The committee’s consideration of the literature and the HIA experience shaped
its conclusions and recommendations for the framework and guidance that it
offers here.
The committee notes that it was given a broad task, that is, to develop a
framework and guidance for HIA applicable in all contexts. Therefore, the
committee had to develop a flexible framework that is amenable to all types of
HIA and could not simply provide a cookbook or technical manual on HIA. The
committee, however, has provided extensive reference lists that should help to
guide the reader with regard to specific assessments. Furthermore, the commit-
tee recognizes that HIA exists on a spectrum of impact assessment and planning
tools that have been used for decades. However, the committee’s focus was on
developing a framework and guidance for HIA, not on comparing and contrast-
ing all possible approaches and tools that are available. Similarly, although the
committee reviewed the international and U.S. experience with HIA, it did not
thoroughly examine and compare all types of HIAs that have been conducted or
determine their impact and how the information has been used on release of the
HIA. Finally, the committee uses various terms throughout the report, many of
which are defined in the glossary (see Appendix D). The committee notes that it
uses the term public health in this report in the broadest sense possible, that is,
generally the health of the public. Implicit in the concept of public health used
by the committee is the idea that health is affected by a wide array of factors that
range from the societal to the biologic.
ORGANIZATION OF REPORT
The committee’s report is organized into five chapters and six appendixes.
Chapter 2 discusses the rationale for conducting HIA and the key role that it can
play in improving public health and reducing health disparities. Chapter 3 out-
lines the elements of the HIA process (that is, the framework), describes the
current variability, and highlights features that the committee finds are critical
for any HIA. Chapter 4 provides the committee’s suggestions for best practices
for conducting HIA, and Chapter 5 discusses what is needed for advancing HIA.
The review of HIA experience, the committee biographies, the statement of task,

a glossary of commonly used terms, and a discussion of the analysis of health

effects under NEPA are provided in appendixes.
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Why We Need Health-Informed

Policies and Decision-Making
On the basis of the most recent data from the World Health Organization,
the United States ranks 32nd in the world in life expectancy—behind such coun-
tries as Japan, Australia, Italy, Greece, Iceland, Malta, and Luxembourg—
despite ranking third in total expenditures on health care as a percentage of gross
domestic product (GDP) (WHO 2010). Clearly, the United States still faces im-
portant challenges to promoting health and enhancing quality of life. For exam-
ple, chronic diseases, many of which are preventable, account for more than
50% of all deaths each year (King et al. 2008). Almost half of all adults have at
least one chronic illness (Wu and Green 2000). Obesity, a major risk factor for
numerous health conditions, has grown to epidemic proportions in the United
States (Ogden et al. 2007, 2008): one-third of all adults and almost one-fifth of
people 6-19 years old are obese. Improvement in health has been inconsistent,
and major disparities in health associated with socioeconomic circumstances,
race, and ethnicity persist (Williams et al. 2010).
Despite major medical advances and large health expenditures, many
Americans are unable to achieve their full health potential; this affects not only
the quality and duration of their lives but their ability to be engaged and produc-
tive members of society. Poor health also has important economic implica-
tions—for lost productivity and for the costs of diagnosing and treating chronic
conditions. Those costs affect individuals, communities, and society at large
(WHO 2001; Hammitt 2007; Mackenbach et al. 2007). For example, costs for
medical care have mushroomed both in amount and as a portion of the U.S.
GDP because of the increases in medical care itself, the increases in use of the
health-care system, the aging of the population, and the higher rates of chronic
diseases. Health-care spending accounted for 7% of the U.S. GDP in 1970 and
16% of it in 2008 (CMS 2011); it is projected to be close to 20% by 2019 (CMS
2010), and this projection does not take into account the substantial increases in
morbidity and mortality that will result from the obesity and diabetes epidemics.
23

Diabetes alone accounted for $174 billion in health-care costs in the United
States in 2007; diabetes incidence is expected to increase from 7 per 1,000 to 15
per 1,000 by 2050 and diabetes prevalence from 14% to 21% by 2050 and in
some scenarios up to 33% (Boyle et al 2010). Thus, the consequences of not
preventing chronic health conditions are large, not only in years of healthy life
lost but in monetary costs.
There is growing recognition among scientists, communities, and policy-
makers that health is affected by an array of factors that operate on multiple lev-
els and throughout a person’s lifetime (Adler and Stewart 2010). Although the
importance of access to and quality of health care is well recognized, prevention
is key. Disease prevention and health promotion require addressing a much
broader set of factors and policies that shape health-related behaviors in addition
to trying to modify biologic processes specifically related to diseases. Efforts to
improve early detection and treatment of diseases through improved access to
high-quality medical care must be complemented by approaches that address the
underlying or root causes of disease. The underlying causes include the factors
that shape the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age,
and the policies that affect them. Those factors and their implications for health
have been highlighted in a number of recent reports (see, for example, WHO
2002; CSDH 2008; RWJF 2009).
The root causes that have been identified indicate that many policies or
programs thought to be unrelated to health may have important health conse-
quences. Indeed, it has been argued that major health problems, such as the obe-
sity epidemic and its associated health and monetary costs, are essentially unin-
tended consequences of various social and policy factors related, for example, to
the mass production and distribution of energy-dense foods (Ledikwe et al.
2006; Mendoza et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2008) and the engineering of physical
activity out of daily life through changes in how transportation is organized and
how neighborhoods are designed and built (Gordon-Larsen et al. 2005; Li et al.
2008; Frank and Kavage 2009; Fitzhugh et al. 2010). Such policy and planning
decisions have powerful implications for individual behaviors and public health.
The prevention of today’s major health problems requires understanding and
intervention to affect the root causes of ill health and the policies that shape and
affect the root causes. To address them effectively, a better understanding of the
possible health consequences of proposed policies and planning decisions as
they are being developed is needed so that adverse health effects can be antici-
pated and minimized and health benefits maximized.
In summary, the health implications of decisions need to be considered
explicitly not only to prevent harm but to promote health. Indeed, it can be ar-
gued that major improvements in the health of the U.S. public cannot be
achieved without attention to the root causes of ill health and to the policies and
programs that affect them. Furthermore, many root causes of ill health are com-
mon to the entire U.S. population, so interventions that address them can have
broad-based impacts that benefit both high-risk groups and the general public.

Why We Need Health-Informed Policies and Decision-Making 25
KNOWLEDGE OF ROOT CAUSES OF HEALTH CONSEQUENCES
Research has identified measurable health consequences that have a wide

variety of fundamental or root causes. The causes investigated have included
broadly defined socioeconomic circumstances (Lynch et al. 1996; Marmot et al.
2001; Adler et al. 2007), education (Backlund et al. 1999; Din-Dzietham et al.
2000; Fleishman 2005; Lleras-Muney 2005; Kawachi et al. 2010), work and
work environments (Marmot and Theorell 1988; Ferrie et al. 1998; Frank and
Cullen 2006; Gillen et al. 2007; Cummings and Kreiss 2008; Ferrie et al. 2008;
Clougherty et al. 2010), and physical and social features of communities or
neighborhoods (Roberts 1997; Clougherty et al. 2007; Diez-Roux and Mair
2010). For example, a large literature has shown that economic resources are
strongly associated with many health outcomes. The relationship between eco-
nomic resources and health is not limited to those living in poverty; rather, there
is abundant evidence of a graded inverse relationship between income and mor-
tality or morbidity from chronic diseases that extends well above the poverty
level (Adler and Stewart 2010).
Higher educational attainment is related to better health, possibly through
the consequences of education for income, occupational achievement, residential
location, and such other factors as self-efficacy and sense of control (Kawachi et
al. 2010). For example, research shows that a 30-year-old white male high-
school graduate can expect to live an average of 10 years longer than a 30-year-
old white male who has less than 9 years of education. In black men, the educa-
tion-based difference in life expectancy is greater than 16 years (Crimmins and
Saito 2001).
Work environments are also important predictors of health. The adverse
health consequences of physical and chemical exposures at work—such as ex-
posure to toxicants, noise, and heat—are well established (Rosenstock et al.
2005). Recent work has shown that psychosocial features of the work environ-
ment, such as control of the work process, are important risk factors for chronic
diseases (Siegrist 1996; Belkic et al. 2004; Ostry et al. 2006; Schulte et al. 2007;
Clougherty et al. 2010; Krieger 2010; Meyer et al. 2010). It has also been sug-
gested that trends in occupation-related physical activity may contribute to the
obesity epidemic (Church et al. 2011).
There is abundant evidence of the impact of environmental factors, such as
air pollution, on the causation and acceleration of respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases (Brook et al. 2004; Dominici et al. 2006; Pope and Dockery 2006). In
recent years, a broad and growing scientific literature has documented associa-
tions of various aspects of the physical and social environments of neighbor-
hoods with health-related behaviors, such as diet and physical activity; these
findings highlight important implications for the prevention of obesity, diabetes,
and other chronic diseases (Brisbon et al. 2005; Hannon et al. 2006; Sturm 2008;
Franzini et al. 2009; Larson et al. 2009; Chen and Florax 2010; Truong et al.
2010). Transportation systems and the location of industrial land uses are related

to health; for example, childhood asthma (Gauderman et al. 2005; Jerrett et al.
2008; Mann et al. 2010; Mar et al. 2010), birth outcomes (Salam et al. 2005;
Ritz et al. 2007; Slama et al. 2007; Woodruff et al. 2008), and cardiovascular
risk (Brook et al. 2010; Park et al. 2010) have all been shown to be associated
with transportation and planning decisions that shape exposure to air pollution,
including airborne particulate matter and toxic gases generated by traffic and
other sources. Health can be affected by planning decisions that result in urban
sprawl (Pohanka and Fitzgerald 2004); for example, social isolation created by
living in suburban areas may have health consequences (Pohanka and Fitzgerald
2004), and increased use of cars for commuting can result in increases in air-
borne particulate matter and in sedentary behavior associated with greater time
spent in cars (Friedman et al. 2001).
A broad array of social and economic policies—although less frequently
investigated in empirical studies—is likely to have measurable health impacts.
For example, policies related to taxation, income supplementation, or access to
education clearly determine a person’s economic resources and educational at-
tainment, which have been shown to affect health. Policies that affect job vari-
ety, quality, and environments will affect health, and policies that affect the
physical and social environments of communities may also have important
health consequences (Dow et al. 2010). Examples include housing policies that
affect the quality and location of housing developments; transportation policies
that affect the quality and availability of public transportation; urban-planning
policies and decisions that affect land use and street connectivity or the creation
of new housing developments; policies related to the location of food stores,
farmers markets, and other food services; policies that promote safety and social
interactions between neighbors, such as those related to community policing,
lighting, organization, and design of attractive public spaces; and economic-
development and zoning policies that affect the location of businesses and in-
dustries.
The factors that affect health are also root causes of health disparities as-
sociated with socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity. Those health disparities
are pronounced and persistent and do not appear to be declining despite medical
advances. It is apparent that reducing the disparities will require addressing the
more fundamental causes. Moreover, socioeconomically disadvantaged groups
and racial or ethnic minorities are already at a health disadvantage and are the
ones most likely to be affected by unintended adverse health consequences of
policies or planning decisions because of where they live, their lack of resources
to buffer or compensate adverse effects, and their lack of political power to ad-
vocate for their health. Indeed, even if a policy or decision improves public
health overall, disparities in health related to socioeconomic position, race, or
ethnicity may persist (Schulz and Northridge 2004; Frohlich and Potvin 2008).

WHY ASSESS THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF POLICIES,

PROGRAMS, PROJECTS, AND PLANNING DECISIONS?
Systematic assessment of the health consequences of policy, program, pro-

ject, and planning decisions is of major importance for protecting and promoting
public health because it allows the people who are involved in the decision-
making process to consider the health impacts with other factors. Decisions can
then be modified to minimize adverse health consequences or to maximize
health benefits. Failure to consider health consequences can result in unintended
harm or in lost opportunities for health improvement and disease prevention.
Below are examples that illustrate the implications of failure to consider health
consequences of policies, programs, projects, or plans.
U.S. agricultural-assistance programs provide subsidies for commodity
crops—such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice—to help to ensure that U.S.
families have an affordable source of food, that crop prices are stable, and that
farmers continue to farm. Fruits, vegetables, and nonwheat grains are not subsi-
dized, so farmers may be less likely to grow them. Although the assistance pro-
grams are considered successful, some researchers argue that an unintended
consequence of the subsidies is their contribution to the current obesity epidemic
and other nutrition problems (Fields 2004; Tillotson 2004; Hawkes 2007;
Drewnowski 2010). For example, products made from the few subsidized
crops—including high-fructose corn syrup sweeteners, hydrogenated fats made
from soybeans, and feed for cattle and pigs—may saturate the market; this in
turn may lower the prices of fattening, nutrient-poor, and energy-dense foods,
such as prepackaged snacks, ready-to-eat meals, and fast food. The cheaper
foods can easily compete with higher-priced healthier foods, such as fruits and
vegetables, and this can affect calorie intake and other dietary factors that have
implications for various chronic conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and meta-
bolic syndrome (Ledikwe et al. 2006; Mendoza et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2008).
Lower-income groups may also be disproportionately affected by the less ex-
pensive, less nutritious foods because a larger portion of their diets may consist
of these foods. The health consequences of policies promoting the production of
inexpensive, calorie-dense foods could thus be far-ranging but remain unknown
in the absence of a systematic assessment.
A second example of a failure to anticipate the health effects of policy and
planning decisions is apparent in examining the health effects of transportation
infrastructure. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 introduced the development
of a transportation infrastructure that has had multiple implications for health,
both favorable and unfavorable. Over the last several decades, the transportation
infrastructure has focused on road-building, private automobiles, and transporta-
tion of goods and has resulted in “an unprecedented level of individual mobility
and facilitated economic growth” (APHA 2010, p. 2). It has shaped land-use

patterns throughout the United States and has had implications for air quality,
toxic exposures, noise, traffic collisions, pedestrian injuries, and neighborhood
physical and social features potentially linked to health (Frank et al. 2006).
Transportation accounts for 30% of U.S. energy demand, and in 2008,
tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles and impacts from fuel production con-
tributed an estimated $56 billion in health and related damages (NRC 2010).1
The costs partly reflect transportation-investment decisions that are focused on
maximizing the safety and efficiency of automobile use and have resulted in
important efficiencies in motor-vehicle transportation. The decisions have also
led to transportation systems that discourage pedestrian and bicycle travel be-
cause of sheer distances between destinations, lack of adequate infrastructure for
pedestrian travel, and increased hazards associated with pedestrian traffic—for
example, unsafe pedestrian crossings and absence of pedestrian routes that are
separate and safe from motor vehicles (APHA 2010). Personal and societal costs
of the transportation decisions include nearly 34,000 deaths in 2009 due to mo-
tor-vehicle collisions; more than 12% of the deaths were of pedestrians (NHTSA
2010). The emphasis on motorized transport has been associated with more driv-
ing (Ewing and Cervero 2001; Frank et al. 2007), less physical activity (Saelens
et al. 2003; Frank et al. 2005, 2006; TRB 2005), higher rates of obesity (Ewing
et al. 2003; Frank et al. 2004; Lopez 2004), and higher rates of air pollution
(Frank et al. 2000; Frank and Engelke 2005; Frank et al. 2006). A partial ac-
counting of costs associated with the health effects, shown in Table 2-1, totals
about $400 billion in 2008.
There is evidence that adverse health effects associated with transportation
disproportionately affect members of racial and ethnic minorities and those in
lower socioeconomic strata and thus contribute to persistent racial, ethnic, and
socioeconomic disparities in health (Houston et al. 2004; Apelberg et al. 2005;
Ponce et al. 2005; Wu and Batterman. 2006; Chakraborty and Zandbergen
2007). In the absence of systematic assessment of health effects and their asso-
ciated costs, the implications of transportation decisions for health and health
inequities cannot be factored into the process of making decisions about trans-
portation infrastructure. As a result, the health-related effects and their costs to
individuals and society are hidden or invisible products of transportation-related
decisions.
Both adverse and beneficial health effects of specific decisions may some-
times be manifested rapidly. A study of the health consequences of changes in
transit systems during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta documented benefi-
cial health effects of decisions made primarily to reduce downtown traffic con-
gestion. Efforts to reduce congestion included daily 24-hour public transporta-
tion, the addition of 1,000 buses to support park-and-ride transit in the city, local
1
The estimate excludes costs associated with climate change and non-fuel impacts,
such as accidents and health effects resulting from reduced exercise.

TABLE 2-1 Costs of Transportation-Related Health Outcomes, 2008

Outcome U.S. dollars, billionsa Factors Included in Estimate
Obesityb $142  Health-care costs
 Lost wages due to illness and disability
 Lost future earnings due to premature death
Air pollution $50-80  Health-care costs

from traffic  Premature death
Traffic crashes $180  Health-care costs

 Lost wages
 Property damage
 Travel delay
 Legal and administrative costs
 Pain and suffering
 Lost quality of life
a
All cost estimates are adjusted to 2008 U.S. dollars.
b
“A portion of these costs are attributable to auto-oriented transportation and land use
development that inadvertently limit opportunities for physical activity and access to
healthy food” (APHA 2010, p. 2).
Source: Adapted from APHA 2010, page 4. Reprinted with permission; copyright 2010,
American Public Health Association.
business use of alternative work hours and telecommuting, closure of the down-
town sector to private automobile travel, alteration of downtown delivery sched-
ules, and public announcements of potential traffic and air-quality problems.
Those actions resulted in substantial decreases in acute childhood asthma events
that were reversed after the end of the Olympic Games and the resumption of
usual traffic patterns (Friedman et al. 2001).
Similarly, the introduction of electronic toll collection (E-ZPass), which
reduced idling and queuing by allowing cars to move more quickly through toll
booths, had important favorable effects on birth outcomes. Currie and Walker
(2011) compared birth outcomes among women who lived near toll booths
where E-ZPass was introduced with birth outcomes among women who lived
near busy roadways that were not close to E-ZPass tollbooths. The introduction
of E-ZPass greatly reduced traffic congestion and motor-vehicle emissions in the
vicinity of highway toll plazas. The reductions in motor vehicle emissions were
associated with a 10.8% reduction in prematurity and an 11.8% reduction in low
birth weight of infants born to women living within 2 km of E-ZPass toll booths
(Currie and Walker 2011). Moreover, there is substantial evidence that the prob-
ability of living near highways is unequally distributed by race, ethnicity, and
socioeconomic status; this suggests that the changes may not only improve birth
outcomes but reduce racial and socioeconomic disparities in those outcomes

(Gunier et al. 2003; Green et al. 2004; Houston et al. 2004; Jacobsen et al. 2004;
Ponce et al. 2005).
In the examples above, health was not the primary force driving the deci-
sion to implement a policy or program, but important health consequences were
observed. Moreover, the actions had consequences not only for public health
generally but for disparities in health given that many of the conditions are more
common among specific racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. Integrating
health considerations in a systematic way into the planning of programs, poli-
cies, and projects is key to preventing poor health and improving and protecting
public health. The failure to consider consequences has led and will lead to
many unanticipated adverse health consequences that have human and economic
implications. The examples also demonstrate the potential of identifying unex-
pected health-enhancing policy and program interventions that can contribute
substantially in addressing major health problems.
In summary, growing scientific evidence of the links between health and
many economic, social, and planning factors makes it imperative to evaluate the
health implications of policies, programs, projects, and plans that affect the root
causes. Health-informed decision-making is sorely needed. The systematic as-
sessment of the health consequences of policies and planning decisions is of
special importance for protecting the health of vulnerable groups and those al-
ready at a health disadvantage because of adverse social or economic circum-
stances. In addition, it is fundamental to eliminating health disparities by race,
ethnicity, and socioeconomic circumstances.
WHY ASSESSMENTS ARE NOT BEING CONDUCTED
Scientific information on the importance of root causes is abundant and

growing, but it is not being fully used in a practical sense—that is, by applying it
to the daily decisions made at the local, state, tribal, or federal level to enhance
health and reduce health disparities. There are a number of reasons why health
effects may not be systematically incorporated into decisions regarding policies,
programs, projects, or plans, including the following:
 The absence of a mandate or funding to address root causes of ill health

or health disparities or to assess the health impacts of planned policies and deci-
sions.
 The presence of structural and administrative barriers to collaboration
among public-health, planning, and environmental-health professionals (Epstein
et al. 2006).
 The mismatch and lack of coherence among governance structures—
for example, planning decisions about land use are made under the jurisdictions
of local townships, and public-health decisions are made at the level of a city,
county, or state.

 The perception that health and health disparities are attributable only to
individual characteristics and choices (Link and Phelan 1995).
 The absence of inclusive and participatory mechanisms and processes
for systematically integrating planning, public health, and environmental-health
promotion in decision-making.
 The failure to enforce existing regulations to assess health implications
of policies, programs, projects, and plans—for example, the failure to capture
health impacts adequately in the context of environmental impact assessments.
Given the potential to reduce harm and enhance health, it is imperative to

overcome the barriers that have prevented the consideration of health in deci-
sion-making. Factoring health and health-related costs into decision-making is
essential in confronting the nation’s pressing health problems and enhancing
public health.
WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS FOR ASSESSMENT?
Assessing the health consequence of policies, programs, projects, and

plans is a challenge that will require an interdisciplinary approach—involving
such disciplines as health, social sciences, economics, and policy—and the col-
laboration of scientists, policy-makers, and communities. Systematic processes
for rigorously assessing health consequences are needed. Although numerous
analytic and deliberative tools are being used to incorporate aspects of health
into decisions, none fully provides all the necessary attributes.
Human health risk assessment has been used for decades to incorporate
understanding of the health implications of exposures (often environmental) into
the regulatory decision-making process. However, risk assessment as conven-
tionally practiced generally focuses on individual chemicals or limited mul-
tichemical exposure scenarios and does not capture the array of factors de-
scribed earlier in this chapter. Although it could be argued that risk assessment
can be applied in a manner that addresses all dimensions of policy influences on
health and that the recent move toward cumulative risk assessment recognizes
the need to consider a wide array of chemical and nonchemical exposures (NRC
2009), risk assessment without a substantial redefinition of the field is unlikely
to be applicable to the great variety of policies, programs, projects, and plans
that could have health implications.2 Moreover, traditional risk assessment tends
to focus on adverse health effects rather than on beneficial and adverse effects.
It also emphasizes quantitative outputs as the primary end points in most appli-
2
The committee notes that cumulative impact assessment as defined in NRC (2009) is
somewhat broader than cumulative risk assessment in that it captures a wider array of end
points and includes more qualitative components than cumulative risk assessment. How-
ever, it is generally oriented more toward characterizing impacts and less toward inform-
ing specific interventions or decisions.

cations. Although risk assessments include qualitative elements—such as hazard

identification—and involve qualitative descriptions in risk characterization, they
are generally secondary to the quantitative elements, and outcomes that cannot
be quantified are rarely decision-relevant. Even in the context of cumulative risk
assessment, NRC (2009) emphasized the importance of retaining the key attrib-
utes of quantitative risk assessment. Finally, it rarely engages stakeholders and
communities in a deliberative process. Thus, in spite of the well-established
regulatory mechanisms for health risk assessment and its potential to be modi-
fied in the long term, it is unlikely that all the health consequences of policy and
planning decisions could be appropriately captured by conventional risk assess-
ment (and in some situations, a narrow application of risk assessment could lead
to policy and planning decisions that are injurious to health).
Other tools used to incorporate health into decision-making include cost-
benefit or cost-effectiveness analysis, which often uses outputs from health risk
assessment and the costs of implementing control strategies or other interven-
tions. Those analytic tools commonly use a decision-theory framework in which
various interventions are considered and an optimal choice is made on the basis
of the outputs of the analysis. However, they have limitations similar to those
surrounding traditional risk assessment, including a focus on more analytic than
deliberative aspects of decision-making and a lack of an obvious mechanism to
include qualitative information and participation of stakeholders.
The existing tool that may be most closely aligned with the consideration
of multilevel and root causes is life-cycle assessment (LCA) (Curran 1996; EPA
2006). LCA examines a process or product and characterizes the full array of its
upstream and downstream implications, including effects on human health, eco-
systems, and other end points of interest to decision-makers. LCA typically re-
lies on a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence to compare vari-
ous approaches to achieve a goal. However, LCA is generally more focused on
such applications as manufacturing or fuel-cycle analysis and consists of more
generic characterizations rather than site-specific characterizations. Thus, LCA
attempts to characterize typical situations often from a national or global per-
spective, whereas the types of policies and planning decisions in which health
dimensions need to be considered are often local and have unique site-specific
attributes that should be considered.
Because of the limitations of existing tools in their ability to evaluate the
health consequences of an array of policies, programs, projects, and plans sys-
tematically, health impact assessment (HIA) is a tool that holds promise for sci-
entists, communities, and policy-makers. By its very nature, HIA lies at the in-
tersection of science, policy, and stakeholder and community engagement. It
includes attributes of health risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and LCA but
differs from them in important ways, including its applicability to a variety of
policies, projects, programs, and plans; its consideration of beneficial and ad-
verse health consequences; its ability to consider and incorporate different types
of evidence; and its engagement of communities and stakeholders in a delibera-
tive process. HIA offers a way to engage agencies and individuals that do not

normally work together, may not share a common expertise and knowledge, and
often have differing priorities, authority, and objectives. It seeks to correct the
fundamental problem of failing to consider health at all in decision-making. The
committee concludes that HIA is valuable even with a lack of perfect forecasting
data and tools because it is better to consider potential health risks and benefits
than to ignore them routinely.
The committee acknowledges that other assessment approaches may share
some features with HIA, but they do not meet the definition and description of
HIA that the committee provides in the present report. Those defining features
are discussed in detail in the chapters that follow.
OTHER BENEFITS OF SYSTEMATIC

ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH IMPACTS
The committee concluded that HIA has at least three important benefits in
addition to the obvious implications for improved policy-making and promotion
and protection of health that would result from the systematic assessment of the
health consequences of policies, programs, projects, and plans:
 Improving the evidence. The conduct of systematic assessments of

health impacts will explicitly identify data gaps and evidence needed to improve
future assessments. It will stimulate policy-relevant scientific research more
directly, whether to develop new empirical studies or to improve systematic
evaluation and synthesis of existing evidence. In addition, systematic monitoring
of the health consequences of policies or actions after they are implemented
should provide valuable new data directly relevant to answering policy-relevant
causal questions that often cannot be addressed with observational studies or
randomized trials. For example, in the Oak-to-Ninth Development Project HIA,
the University of California, Berkeley, Health Impact Group conducted an
analysis to estimate the effect of project-generated traffic on the frequency of
pedestrian-automobile collisions in Chinatown in Oakland, California (UCBHIG
2007). Critiques and discussion of the results of the HIA led to the development
and validation of a predictive model for pedestrian collisions (Wier et al. 2009)
that was used in a later HIA (Bhatia and Wernham 2008). The process of sys-
tematic assessment, critique, and refinements in the development of scientific
evidence to inform decision-making is critical for the development of health
assessments that inform decision-making effectively.
 Raising awareness among policy-makers and the public. The system-
atic assessment of the health consequences of policies and planning decisions
will raise awareness among policy-makers and the public at large about the wide
variety of factors that affect health. It can contribute to a more comprehensive
understanding of the causes of illness and of the role of policies, programs, pro-
jects, and plans in shaping health outcomes, including strategies that are likely to
make the most difference in improving health and in reducing health disparities.

The recognition that health is affected by much more than lifestyle choices, ge-
netic predispositions, and medical care is fundamental in the development and
implementation of the types of strategies that are needed to improve public
health. For example, the development of systematic evidence has resulted in a
growing evidence base that links food policies and food access to the obesity
epidemic and associated chronic diseases; the knowledge of these associations
has in turn begun to generate attention and action among policy-makers (NAGC
2010).
 A new paradigm for productive collaborations. The assessment of the
health consequences of policy and planning decisions will provide opportunities
for a new paradigm for productive collaborations. For example, the collabora-
tions offer opportunities (1) for scientists to be more directly involved in the
application of the science that they conduct to improve public health and to be
made more aware of the type of evidence needed for policy decisions, (2) for
identification of new data sources and designs needed to answer important sci-
entific and policy-relevant questions, (3) for improved ability of policy-makers
to consider health implications in making decisions and improved understanding
of the links between policies and health, (4) for active participation of commu-
nity members in decision-making and increased access to information on health
consequences available through the assessment process, which can enhance their
ability to advocate for health, and (5) for improved insights into the potential
pathways through which proposed decisions are likely to affect the health of
residents (see, for example, Arquette et al. 2002; Corburn 2005).
The collaborations hold great potential for enhancing society’s ability to

prevent disease and promote public health. Furthermore, the active engagement
of representatives of communities whose health stands to be affected by pro-
posed policies, programs, projects, and plans is an essential component of de-
mocratic decision-making. Public engagement may also enhance understanding
of the pathways through which policies, programs, projects, and plans may af-
fect health and could promote actions that contribute to the reduction of health
disparities. For example, the engagement of community members in HIA may
lead to greater awareness of the impact of community resources on health and
result in actions to improve community environments. Finally, systematic as-
sessment of health consequences will give community groups a practical
mechanism for increasing accountability of policy-makers and developers in the
public and private sectors.
CONCLUSIONS
As a society, we routinely make decisions and implement a variety of

policies, programs, and strategies without knowledge of their health implica-
tions. But those actions could substantially affect the health of the population
and health disparities. The health consequences can have economic and social

costs, which can have multiplying and cumulative effects. Identifying the poten-
tial effects in advance is fundamental for disease prevention and could have im-
portant consequences for trends in diseases and for social inequalities in a wide
variety of health outcomes.
By tackling issues that other policy-analysis tools do not systematically
incorporate or address, HIA has both a more expansive vision and a number of
barriers to overcome to be accepted as a decision-making tool. Thus, it holds
great potential but also presents a number of challenges. The following chapters
discuss the key elements of HIA, review the status of HIA, and propose ways to
improve the quality and utility of HIA in the future.
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Elements of a Health Impact Assessment
Chapter 2 established the rationale for examining the potential effects of

decisions on health and health disparities and highlighted health impact assess-
ment (HIA) as a potential tool for assessing the health implications of various
decisions. This chapter describes the types, structure, and content of HIAs and
summarizes the HIA process, methodologic approaches, and variations in prac-
tice. It is informed by a review of U.S. and international HIA literature and
guidelines (see Appendixes A and E) and by the experience of committee mem-
bers and others who provided input during the committee process. On the basis
of its review, the committee synthesized the information from guidance, prac-
tice, and literature to propose criteria that define an HIA and draw several con-
clusions regarding HIA practice. As discussed in this chapter, HIAs have been
used for a wide variety of applications and at all levels of government (local,
state, tribal, and federal) and have been conducted with varied resources over
different schedules. The committee does not intend that the definition and crite-
ria proposed in this chapter be considered rigid requirements but rather that they
reflect an ideal of practice, deviation from which may occur but should be based
on clear and well-articulated needs and rationale.
Before discussing the various elements of HIA, it is important to under-
stand the context in which HIA is undertaken in the United States. As described
in Appendix A, there are few laws in the United States that specifically require
HIA, although many—such as the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA)—require a consideration of health that can be accomplished through
HIA. Most HIAs in the United States are therefore undertaken outside the for-
mal decision-making process by organizations (such as nonprofit community-
based groups), universities, or health departments that do not have decision-
making authority over the proposals being addressed. Although less common to
date, HIAs are also sometimes conducted by a decision-making agency, such as
a metropolitan planning organization or a federal agency complying with NEPA.
The decision to initiate an HIA is often made ad hoc when public-health advo-
cates recognize that the proposal may have important health implications that
43

would not otherwise be recognized or addressed. There are often not clear lines
of authority between the team conducting the HIA and the decision-maker. The
health effects that are included, the data sources and methods that are used, and
the recommendations that are made are therefore determined by the HIA practi-
tioners rather than according to a legal or regulatory standard (Wernham 2011).
Thus, the assessment phase is separated from the management phase, as recom-
mended elsewhere (NRC 1983). The fact, however, that the team conducting the
HIA is aware of the decision context allows the assessment to be decision-
relevant.
CATEGORIES OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Scholars point to a remarkable consistency in the basic elements that are

generally included in descriptions of HIA (Mindell et al. 2008). In practice,
however, there is some inconsistency in how HIAs are conducted—for example,
how stakeholders are engaged and how data are collected and analyzed—and in
the structure and content of the final work products of an HIA. The diversity of
practice owes partly to the fact that HIAs are undertaken for a wide array of pol-
icy-making that spans many sectors, levels of government, types of proposal
(policies, plans, programs, and projects), and degrees of complexity. The vari-
ability in the practice has evolved in the absence of widely accepted practice
standards or formal regulatory or procedural requirements for HIA outside
NEPA and related state laws (see Appendix A). However, it appears to be in-
creasingly accepted that HIA is carried out to inform the decision rather than to
evaluate the impacts after the decision is made, and there is general agreement
on the procedural steps of HIA (Harris-Roxas and Harris 2011).
HIA practice is often defined in terms of several categories. According to
effort, complexity, and duration, HIAs are often described as rapid, intermedi-
ate, or comprehensive. Rapid HIAs may be completed in a short time (weeks to
months), are often focused on smaller and less complex proposals, and generally
involve primarily literature review and descriptive or qualitative analysis. The
phrase desktop HIA has also been used to refer to a rapid HIA that entails little
or no public engagement. Another variation, rapid-appraisal HIA, has been de-
scribed and in some texts includes explicit public engagement through an initial
half-day workshop for stakeholders (Parry and Stevens 2001; Mindell et al.
2003; ICMM 2010). Intermediate HIAs require more time and resources and
involve more complex pathways, more stakeholder engagement, and a more
detailed analysis but include little collection of new data. Comprehensive HIAs
are most commonly differentiated from rapid and intermediate HIAs by the
scope of potential impacts and the need for collection of new primary data. They
can take longer than a year to complete.
HIAs are also differentiated according to whether they are integrated into
an environmental impact assessment or done independently. Another categoriza-
tion is based on the breadth of the HIA and distinguishes HIAs that have a tight

Elements of a Health Impact Assessment 45
focus—such as ones that use a narrow definition of health and emphasize quan-
tification—from HIAs that have a broader, holistic focus shaped by the social
determinants of health (Kemm 2001). Others have proposed categorizing HIAs
as participatory (emphasizing shared governance, public participation, and a
focus on socioeconomic and environmental determinants), quantitative or ana-
lytic (concentrating on the methods and rigor of the analysis), or procedural
(drawing on elements of the other two approaches but emphasizing the proce-
dural steps required and often undertaken within a specified administrative or
regulatory context) (Cole and Fielding 2007).
In practice, the categories are rarely used consistently, and a single HIA
often encompasses a blend of various approaches to stakeholder engagement and
participation, analytic methods, and interactions with the formal decision-
making process. For example, desktop HIAs may consider indirect stakeholder
input through review of public comments submitted outside the HIA process,
comprehensive HIAs may have relatively little stakeholder engagement, and
rapid-appraisal HIAs of smaller-scale proposals may involve collection of some
new data to inform the analysis. The various categories of HIAs, although useful
for describing distinct themes in the field, do not necessarily represent consis-
tently distinct strains of practice. Instead, it appears that the specific methods
and approaches used in a single HIA often evolve within the basic framework
described above and develop as a pragmatic response to context. Influences on
practice include the timeline, resources and skills available to the HIA team, the
factors being considered and the data available for analysis, and the legal and
regulatory context of the decision-making process. That description is consistent
with the earlier characterizations of HIA as a combination of procedures, meth-
ods, and tools (WHO 1999; Quigley et al. 2006).
The committee notes that the diversity of approaches and decision con-
texts imposes challenges for determining the resources required for conducting
an HIA. For example, although rapid HIAs are small-scale, low-cost investiga-
tions, comprehensive HIAs that require new primary data collection can take
longer than a year to complete and require substantially more resources. Infor-
mation on costs of HIAs would be valuable in determining whether an HIA can
be undertaken with the resources available and could inform the screening proc-
ess as described below. However, the committee notes that no published studies
in the United States have attempted to quantify the costs of undertaking an HIA
across a variety of settings. Such information would be useful for informing
future implementation.
DEFINITION OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The committee proposes on the basis of its review the following adapta-
tion of the current working definition of the International Association of Impact
Assessment (Quigley et al. 2006) as a technical definition of HIA:

population and the distribution of the effects within the population. HIA
That definition reflects the committee’s finding that the involvement of

stakeholders—although the approaches used vary from little or no involvement
to robust engagement and participation at every step—has consistently been
described as a core element of HIA practice and should be considered essential
to it. Although rapid or desktop HIAs may not involve stakeholders or consider
their input, this often (although not uniformly) reflects a pragmatic response to
limitations, such as the timeframe for the decision or resources available to the
HIA team, rather than an optimal practice. The definition also notes that recom-
mendations should incorporate monitoring, which is essential for effective con-
tinuing management as a decision is implemented.
WHO CONDUCTS HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENTS?
HIAs can be conducted by a variety of agencies, organizations, or indi-

viduals. A decision-making body—such as a department of planning or trans-
portation—can conduct an HIA to inform its own decision. It is also common
for local, state, or tribal health departments to undertake an HIA to inform an-
other agency’s decision-making. University researchers have conducted HIAs,
and community-based organizations have conducted HIAs with technical assis-
tance from public-health experts to inform officials who are deliberating on a
legislative or administrative proposal. HIAs are also done by private consultants
who are hired by a project proponent or decision-maker or by private-industry
stakeholders.
Because the assessment of health effects depends on an in-depth under-
standing of changes that may affect health—such as changes in traffic flow,
roadway design, air quality, or community revenue sources—HIAs are inher-
ently multidisciplinary; public-health experts may lead the effort but must draw
on resources and expertise from other disciplines. Thus, HIA teams may include
not only health experts but professionals in other related disciplines, such as air
or water quality or traffic modeling. As discussed in greater depth in the section
on scoping, it is common to convene advisory or steering committees, which can
include both technical and policy experts and representatives from stakeholder
groups that have an interest in the decision outcome.
The training and credentials of HIA practitioners are variable, and there is
no universally accepted standard for a level of training necessary to lead an HIA.
In the United States, HIAs have commonly been undertaken by people who have
an MPH or equivalent degree and have attended a brief (2- to 5-day) training

session. In this report, HIA practitioner refers to the person (or people) involved
in conducting an HIA.
PROCESS FOR HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The tasks or elements that are described as part of an HIA are fairly con-
sistent in the peer-reviewed literature and guides reviewed by the committee.
The grouping of the elements in discrete stages or steps of an HIA is less consis-
tent; some guides list as few as five steps, and others describe as many as nine
(Quigley et al. 2006; Bhatia 2010; ICMM 2010). The committee selected a six-
step framework as a clear way to organize and describe the critical elements of
an HIA. The steps can be described as follows:
(1) Screening determines whether a proposal is likely to have health ef-

fects and whether the HIA will provide information useful to the stakeholders
and decision-makers.
(2) Scoping establishes the scope of health effects that will be included in
the HIA, the populations affected, the HIA team, sources of data, methods to be
used, and alternatives to be considered.
(3) Assessment involves a two-step process that first describes the baseline
health status of the affected population and then assesses potential impacts.
(4) Recommendations suggest design alternatives that could be imple-
mented to improve health or actions that could be taken to manage the health
effects, if any, that are identified.
(5) Reporting documents and presents the findings and recommendations
to stakeholders and decision-makers.
(6) Monitoring and evaluation are variably grouped and described. Moni-
toring can include monitoring of the adoption and implementation of HIA rec-
ommendations or monitoring of changes in health or health determinants.
Evaluation can address the process, impact, or outcomes of an HIA.
The following sections provide an overview of the process of conducting

an HIA. For each step, the committee describes the basic purpose, objectives,
and practice elements; summarizes the main outputs; and presents conclusions
regarding pertinent issues raised. Major issues and challenges for HIA develop-
ment and practice are considered in Chapter 4. The reader will notice that some
of the committee’s descriptions and characterizations overlap with those of other
guides; the similarities highlight the consistencies in the field.
Screening
Screening establishes the need for and value of conducting an HIA. Be-
cause HIAs can address decisions that range from small, localized programs or
projects to national policies, screening ensures that HIA is used judiciously and

when it is most likely to be valuable. Given the volume and breadth of decisions
at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels that can potentially affect health in
some way, one of the challenges for HIA practice is to determine which propos-
als to screen. In the absence of mandates or formal procedures, topics for screen-
ing are often chosen on the basis of the interests of a group wishing to use HIA
as opposed to a structured, strategic selection process.1
More structured approaches have also been used. In some cases, collabora-
tion between a health department and other agencies has resulted in the identifi-
cation of appropriate proposals for screening. In other cases, all proposals in
selected agencies or sectors have been screened by local governments (SFCC
1998; Lester et al. 1999; Roscam Abbing 2004). For example, the San Francisco
Department of Public Health routinely screens major projects and plans to en-
sure adequate analysis and mitigation of environmental health impacts. In
Alaska, all large natural-resources development proposals are now screened for
the need for HIA in a new program begun by the state health department.
Screening involves making an initial rapid judgment of whether an HIA is
likely to be feasible and valuable. The central considerations include whether the
proposal in question might cause important changes in health, whether health is
already a major focus of the decision-making process, whether the legal frame-
work provides an opportunity for health to be factored into the decision, and
whether data, staff, resources, and time are adequate to complete a successful
HIA in time to provide useful input into the decision-making process (that is,
can information be provided within the timeline for the decision). Another con-
sideration is whether the proposal is likely to place a disproportionate burden of
risk on vulnerable populations in the affected community; screening proposals
on this basis helps to ensure that the HIA addresses the risk factors that underlie
observed disparities in the rates of illness among various populations.
A variety of screening tools and algorithms are commonly used (Cole et
al. 2005; PHAC 2005; Harris et al. 2007; Bhatia 2010). Some use pertinent
screening questions, such as the ones noted, and apply a sequential yes-no query
to each (Cole et al. 2005). Some provide a checklist of factors to consider and
often focus on health determinants that might be affected by the proposal. Some
decisions to conduct HIA may depend on a specific statutory requirement or
mandated procedure. For example, in the context of NEPA, the lead federal
agency must consider “the degree to which the proposed action affects public
health or safety” to determine whether a proposal is likely to have “significant”
effects and therefore require an environmental impact statement (40 CFR
1
Under NEPA, a federal agency must determine whether a federal environmental de-
cision is likely to have significant effects, and if so, the level of analysis required (40
C.F.R. Section 1508.27). Because the degree to which the proposed action affects public
health or safety is one factor considered, this process could be considered the equivalent
of the screening step of an HIA. In practice, however, explicit consideration of health has
been rare (Steinemann 2000; Cole et al. 2004; Bhatia and Wernham 2008).

1508.27). Ultimately, regardless of the specific tool used, the decision to con-
duct HIA in most cases relies on the practitioner’s or decision-maker’s judgment
regarding the likelihood of impacts, the time and resources available, and the
likelihood that the information produced by the HIA will be a valuable aid to
decision-making.
Because any actions taken on the basis of HIA recommendations need to
be implemented within a specific legal and policy context, screening needs to
establish a clear description of the decision-making process and context. It
should also identify the points at which there is an opportunity for information
from the HIA to influence decisions. Mapping out the timeline for the decision-
making process can be helpful, and for large and complex programs and pro-
jects, identifying the agencies involved and their jurisdictions is important. Such
programs and projects involve many agencies and entities that have authority
over some aspect of planning and implementation. For example, the planning of
the Atlanta Beltline, as described later in this chapter, involved the regional
planning commission, local legislative bodies, state and federal environmental
regulators, and private developers. It is also useful to assess the political context
of the proposal to be assessed and consider, for example, the major political
drivers of the proposal, the arguments made by political supporters and those
opposed to the proposal, and any economic or technical constraints that limit the
alternatives that can be considered.
Public concerns are a common trigger for a decision to screen, and the de-
gree of concern or controversy about a proposal may be one of the factors
weighed in the decision to undertake an HIA. For example, the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health responded to citizen concerns regarding a proposed
power plant by considering whether HIA would be an appropriate way to ad-
dress them (McAuliffe 2009). The committee notes that public involvement is
important in screening; information provided by stakeholders may provide in-
sight into the potential effects of a proposal under consideration that contribute
to the final determination of whether an HIA is warranted and likely to be
useful.
Screening is often not well documented, and it is often not clear from an
HIA report what factors were considered in making the decision to do an HIA.
Moreover, because there is generally no written record of HIAs that stop at
screening, still less is known about the reasons that have led to decisions not to
proceed with HIA. Box 3-1 provides an example of how screening on a proposal
for a residential housing program was conducted. It includes the information that
was taken into account and the final output of the screening process, which was
a decision on whether to commission and proceed with an HIA.
Outputs of Screening
Screening should result in a simple statement that includes the following:

 A description of the proposed policy, program, plan, or project that will

be the focus of the HIA, including the timeline for the decision and intervention
points at which HIA information will be used.
 A statement of why the proposal was selected for screening.
 A preliminary opinion regarding the potential importance of the pro-
posal for health.
 The expected resource requirements of the HIA and the ability of the
HIA team to meet them.
 A description of the political and policy context of the decision and an
analysis of the opportunities to influence decision-making or otherwise make
health-oriented changes.
BOX 3-1 Screening: HIA of a Residential Housing Program
The Crossings is a proposed housing development in Los Angeles that will

provide 450 units in a newly rezoned residential area that needs affordable housing.
A local community-based organization worked with a housing developer on the
proposal and site plan. They expressed “interest in developing The Crossings in a
way that will address local community needs for affordable housing and for other
community assets that are safe, healthy, and supportive” (p. Intro-1).
In 2009, an HIA was conducted to ensure that health impacts were considered
in the design and development of The Crossings and in the broader policies that
affected redevelopment in the area. The HIA report describes the screening process
but does not provide great detail about it.
The HIA notes that the area within which The Crossings is proposed to be
built has the following characteristics:
 A growing population of families that have children.

 Dilapidated housing conditions.
 Prevalence of overcrowding.
 A lack of access to needed goods and services.
The HIA notes that the residential area is inhabited by a vulnerable popula-
tion, that the built environment is of low quality, that the development will poten-
tially have important health implications for residents in the local and surrounding
communities, and that there is a strong commitment shown by the community and
the developer to integrate health considerations into the planning process. It was
concluded during the screening phase that an HIA would add value to project out-
comes. An HIA would identify health assets, health liabilities, and health-promoting
mitigations related to the proposed development project. The facts that resources
were available and that timelines were appropriate were also relevant to the decision
to conduct an HIA.
Source: Adapted from Heller et al. 2009.

 A screening recommendation—for example, no further action required;

no HIA, but health advice and input to be offered in an alternative way; or pro-
ceed with HIA.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Screening
Screening is essential for high-quality HIA. Poorly selected proposals may

result in HIAs that add little new information and consume considerable time
and resources of the HIA team to complete and of recipients to review. HIA
should not be assumed to be the best approach to every health-policy question
but should instead be seen as part of a spectrum of public-health and policy-
oriented approaches, some of which will be more appropriate than others, de-
pending on the specific application. Although the reasons and objectives for
HIA are often not articulated at the outset of screening, establishing well-defined
objectives will focus the screening process on determining whether HIA is likely
to be an effective approach for achieving them.
Any approach to determining which proposals will be screened should
demonstrate a consistent rationale; should document the rationale in the HIA
report; and should take account of public input. Screening should also consider
whether a proposal conforms with applicable standards, policies, or laws rele-
vant to health inasmuch as there is a wide variety of them that bear directly or
indirectly on health. For example, U.S. priorities for improving public health are
expressed in the Healthy People 2020 Program of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (DHHS 2010). Some laws—such as NEPA, state environ-
mental-policy acts, and various local zoning ordinances—may establish protec-
tion of health as a requirement or priority. The programs and policies, however,
may not provide any guidance on how health should be considered (see, for ex-
ample, Pub. L 91-190, 42 U.S.C. 4321-4347 [1970]; EC 2001). Furthermore,
some policies may focus on determinants of health—for example, economic
development, transportation, or housing—rather than explicitly mentioning
health. In each case, it is important to determine how the standards, policies,
programs, and laws bear on how health is factored into a proposal.
The committee concludes that the following are the most important factors
to consider in determining whether to do an HIA:
 The potential for substantial adverse or beneficial health effects and the
potential to make changes in the proposal that could result in an improved health
risk-benefit profile.
 The potential for HIA-based information to alter a decision or help a
decision-maker discriminate among decision options.
 The potential for irreversible or catastrophic effects (including effects
of low likelihood).
 The potential for health effects to place a disproportionate burden on or
substantially benefit vulnerable populations.

 Public concern or controversy regarding health effects of the proposed

decision.
 The opportunity to bring health information into a decision-making
process that may otherwise not include this information.
 The potential for the HIA to be completed in the time allotted and with
the resources available.
Ultimately, the HIA report should provide a rational and consistent expla-
nation of how proposals are selected for screening. That explanation is particu-
larly important when public funds are to be used for an HIA because the public
may want to understand the basis for allocating sparse public resources. Given
the breadth of decisions that are likely to warrant consideration, the approach
taken will vary on the basis of who is initiating the HIA, the capacity and au-
thority of the agency or entity undertaking it, and the objectives for contemplat-
ing an HIA.
Scoping
Scoping establishes the boundaries of the HIA and identifies the health ef-
fects to be evaluated, the populations affected, the HIA team, sources of data,
methods to be used, and any alternatives to be assessed. Well-executed scoping
saves time, work, and resources in the later stages of the HIA (Harris et al.
2007). The choice of what to evaluate will reflect the specific social, political,
and policy context of the decision; the needs, interests, and questions of stake-
holders and decision-makers; and the health status of the affected population.
Potential Health Effects
Determining the potential health effects to include in the HIA and propos-
ing hypothetical causal pathways are the central tasks of scoping. Scoping con-
siders input from many sources, including preliminary literature searches, public
input, and professional or expert opinion in fields relevant to the proposal. Be-
cause it will often not be practical or possible to address all direct and indirect
health effects that appear theoretically possible, it is important to select issues
carefully.2 Setting priorities considers pathways that appear most important from
a public-health perspective and considers issues that have been raised promi-
nently by stakeholders. Questions that are important from a public-health per-
spective might include the severity of the health effect, the size and likelihood of
the effect, and the potential of the effect to exacerbate health disparities. In prac-
tice, some HIAs have focused on a specific health end point, such as obesity, or
2
Identifying high-priority issues has been addressed in numerous contexts outside
HIA, including human-health and ecologic risk assessment (see, for example, EPA 1989,
1992; NRC 1996, 2009).

health concerns related to a single impact of the proposal, such as the health
effects of air pollutants, most likely without using a systematic approach that
considered and eliminated other impacts (see, for example, Kuo et al. 2009; Cas-
tro et al. 2010).
Iteration during scoping and between scoping and assessment often results
in additional changes in the final list of issues included in the HIA. During scop-
ing, the HIA team may produce an initial list, refine it on the basis of stake-
holder input, and then make it final through research and analysis in the assess-
ment phase. In other cases, the initial scope is generated by stakeholders and
then refined through research and input from advisory or steering committees.
Several approaches for scoping are available. One approach uses a logic
framework that maps out the causal pathways by which health effects might
occur (see Figure 3-1). In general, this approach describes effects directly re-
lated to the proposal (such as changes in air emissions) and traces them to health
determinants (such as air quality) and finally to health outcomes (such as
asthma). The first step in the framework is typically a determinant of health,
such as air pollution, traffic, employment, or noise. Logic frameworks can be
used as part of stakeholder engagement to develop a shared understanding of
how a project will develop and the outcomes that can be expected (Cave and
Curtis 2001a,b; Cave et al. 2001). Another method of scoping is to develop a
table that facilitates a systematic and rapid appraisal of all the potential ways in
which a proposal might affect health (see Table 3-1). In this approach, the as-
pects of a proposal that may affect health are listed and considered in major
categories of health and illness.
Box 3-2 provides an example of scoping for the HIA of a proposed devel-
opment in Atlanta. The health issues were identified by determining the popula-
tions that would be affected and then considering how they would be affected. A
variety of information was used to inform the process
Establishing Who Might Be Affected
Scoping identifies those likely to be affected by the proposed policy, pro-

ject, program, or plan. The process may include identifying communities and
geographic regions; demographic, economic, racial, and ethnic groups; and vul-
nerable populations, such as children, elderly people, disabled people, low-
income people, racial and ethnic minorities, and people who have pre-existing
health conditions. The process of describing pre-existing health issues, health
disparities, and influences on health may also begin during scoping, although the
full characterization of baseline health status generally takes place during as-
sessment.

54

FIGURE 3-1 Example of a logic framework that maps out the possible causal pathways by which health effects might occur. Source:
SFDPH 2011.
TABLE 3-1 Example of a Table Used for Systematic Scoping

Health Category
Chronic Infectious Well-being or
Potentially Affected Areas Disease Disease Injury Nutrition Psychosocial
Environment
 Air quality
 Water quality
 Soil
 Other
Economy
 Personal (income,
employment; can include
occupational risk)
 Revenue or expense
to local, state, or tribal
government (support for
or drain on services,
infrastructure)
Infrastructure
 Need for new roads
and transit, water, or
sanitation systems
 Demand on existing
infrastructure
Services
 New services as a
direct result of proposal
 Drain on existing
services resulting from
proposed action
Demographics
 Community
composition
 Traffic volume
 Residential or
commercial use patterns
Other

BOX 3-2 Scoping: Atlanta BeltLine HIA

As described by Ross (2007, p. 9), “the Atlanta BeltLine is a transit, trails, parks,
and redevelopment project that uses a 22-mile loop of largely abandoned freight rail line
that lies between two and four miles from the city center” and affects about 45 neighbor-
hoods. In 2005, an HIA was conducted by a multidisciplinary team. The goal was to in-
corporate health considerations into the decision-making process “by predicting health
consequences, informing decision makers and the public about health impacts, and pro-
viding realistic recommendations to prevent or mitigate negative health outcomes” (p. 9).
One of the first steps in identifying the parameters of the assessment was to estab-
lish an understanding of the BeltLine, a complex project that had been evolving for sev-
eral years and was expected to be constructed over a 30-year period. The HIA team
needed an authoritative description on which to base its assessment. The Atlanta Devel-
opment Authority’s BeltLine Redevelopment Plan (November 2005) was identified as a
coherent and publicly accepted vision that had been approved by local elected officials
(ADA 2005). The source of public funding for the project was the Tax Allocation District
(TAD), and only within the district’s boundaries could funding be collected and bond
money spent. A variety of planning and zoning, funding, and environmental regulatory
decisions were required for the BeltLine’s various components to be developed.
The HIA team was assisted by an advisory committee, but it appears that the com-
mittee was not involved in the scoping. The HIA report states that scoping was done by
the HIA team and involved desk-based research and a web and postal survey. The scop-
ing phase was used to identify the parameters of the assessment, the affected and most
vulnerable populations, and potential key health effects. The final HIA report describes
each factor (see below) and presents the results of the scoping. The entire decision-
making process is appropriately not described in the final report; however, the reader is
not told whether the HIA team prepared a scoping report or whether it presented the find-
ings of the scoping stage.
Affected populations: As the TAD constituted only a portion of the city that would
be directly affected, the HIA team created the HIA study area by placing a 0.5-mile buffer
around the BeltLine TAD. The HIA study area was divided into five planning areas, and
census (2000) and mortality data were used to analyze the population profiles. Variations
were found in race, age, employment status, poverty, car ownership, and mortality. It was
not possible to derive mortality rates for demographic subgroups. Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System data were used for the county and the state and stratified by race.
Most vulnerable populations: Less information was provided about this step. The
most vulnerable populations were identified as people of low economic status, children,
older adults, renters, and the carless. Calculations were conducted to develop a vulner-
ability score. The top 10% of the census tracts within the study area were then identified
as locations of the most vulnerable populations.
Key health effects: Issues were identified through analysis of newspaper coverage;
outreach to such groups as local officials, members of the public, and businesses; devel-
opment of a logic framework; and a survey of people living, working, or attending school
near the BeltLine. The HIA team identified the following critical issues that could affect
the health of the study area population: access and social equity, physical activity, safety,
social capital, and environment (including air quality, noise, and water management).
Source: Adapted from Ross 2007.

The HIA Team, Advisory Bodies, and Stakeholder Involvement
Scoping also determines who will be part of the HIA team and establishes
a plan for technical oversight and review, stakeholder participation and in-
volvement, and involvement of and interaction with decision-makers. Com-
monly, a core team is responsible for the bulk of writing and analysis. In some
cases, the team may draw on outside consultants who have expertise in a spe-
cific health issue or method. Furthermore, HIA teams commonly rely on analy-
ses by such experts as traffic-safety engineers or air-quality analysts who pro-
vide information on the links between the proposal and changes in health
determinants.
Advisory, steering, and technical oversight committees are also commonly
convened during scoping. Membership is variable but may include representa-
tives of affected communities or community-based organizations, industrial pro-
ponents or business groups, public-health experts, officials involved in the deci-
sion-making process, and others who have a stake in the outcome. The
committees may be convened for several purposes, including providing techni-
cal guidance or peer review, ensuring adequate and fair representation of diverse
interests and priorities among stakeholders, communicating the results of the
HIA to decision-makers, and developing recommendations that address commu-
nity needs and are compatible with the specific legal requirements of the deci-
sion-making process.
Public and stakeholder participation during scoping can serve several im-
portant purposes, such as providing local knowledge regarding existing condi-
tions and potential impacts, introducing alternatives or mitigation measures that
stakeholders would endorse as effective ways to address key concerns, and al-
lowing representative participation in shaping the terms of the HIA by groups
affected by the proposal. Scoping also establishes a plan for stakeholder partici-
pation in later phases of the HIA. The early and central role of stakeholder iden-
tification and participation is analogous to the guidance provided in the report
published by the Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment
and Risk Management (1997).
The approaches taken for stakeholder involvement vary widely. The varia-
tion partly reflects the wide array of applications of HIA; for example, it is not
necessary or feasible to use the same approaches to involve stakeholders for a
local project and for a high-level state or national policy. That issue is discussed
at greater length in Chapter 4.
Data Sources and Methods
Scoping identifies appropriate data sources for the analysis and should
also identify important data gaps. In some cases, the timeline and available re-
sources will prevent collection of new data to address gaps that are identified. In
others, scoping may identify studies that can be carried out by the HIA team or

studies that can be carried out by experts involved in some other aspect of the
planning, permitting, or review process (such as air-quality or traffic-safety
analysis). Scoping also establishes a plan for the analytic methods that will be
used during the assessment phase. The specific methods used in assessment are
discussed in depth in the next section.
Alternatives
Another issue that should be addressed in scoping is identifying alterna-

tives to the proposed action. The cornerstone of an assessment that is conducted
to comply with NEPA is the presentation of a set of reasonable alternatives to
the proposed action; the assessment then considers the impacts of the proposed
action and the alternatives. Assessing alternatives in parallel with the proposal
can aid decision-making by highlighting tradeoffs and actions that can be taken
to achieve the desired outcome while minimizing harms. Because HIA in the
United States is often undertaken outside a formal legal mandate, it has not con-
sistently included alternatives assessment. The committee concludes that when
alternatives to the proposal being assessed are under consideration, the HIA
team should assess the impacts of each alternative. Because developing an alter-
native (such as suggesting an alternate route for a proposed highway) involves
many considerations that may be outside the purview and expertise of an HIA
team, the committee recognizes that it may not be practical to expect the HIA
team to develop alternatives independently. However, where practical, the HIA
team should aim to evaluate a variety of alternatives or, minimally, to identify
the characteristics of proposed actions that would be health-protective or detri-
mental to health. For example, although an HIA may not be able to incorporate
engineering or economic specifications for alternate routes for a proposed high-
way, it could discuss factors that would influence health outcomes, such as indi-
cating that a desirable route would be, for example, 100 m from any school or
elderly facility or would not be proximate to high-population-density areas with
a number of vulnerable people. It would then fall to the decision-makers to de-
termine routes that met those criteria.
Outputs of Scoping
On the basis of its review of current guidance and practice, the committee
recommends that scoping should result in a framework for the HIA and a written
project plan that includes the following:
 An initial brief summary of the pathways through which health could

be affected and the health effects to be addressed, including a rationale for how
the effects were chosen and an account of any potential health effects that were
considered but were not selected and why. Any logic models or scoping tables
that were completed should also be included.

 Identification of the population and vulnerable groups—such as chil-

dren, the elderly, racial or ethnic minorities, low-income people, and commu-
nities—that are likely to be affected.
 A description of the research questions, data sources, methods to be
used, and any alternatives to be assessed.
 Identification of apparent data gaps and of data collection that could
be undertaken to address the gaps or a rationale for not undertaking data col-
lection.
 A summary of how stakeholders were engaged, the main issues that
the stakeholders raised, and how they will be addressed or why they will not
be addressed.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Scoping
The credibility and relevance of HIA to the decision-making process rest

on a balanced and complete examination of the health risks, benefits, and trade-
offs presented by the project, policy, program, or plan being assessed. For that
reason, it is important that scoping begin with a systematic consideration of all
potential effects rather than limiting consideration to a subset of issues prede-
termined by the team’s research interests or regulatory requirements. Con-
versely, to have the greatest relevance as an informational and planning docu-
ment and to ensure judicious use of resources, the HIA should ultimately focus
on the health effects of greatest potential importance. Therefore, scoping should
be thought of as a two-part process that starts with a systematic effort to identify
all potentially important effects and that continues with selection of the most
important and well-substantiated effects for further analysis at later stages.
Characteristics unique to the affected community may not be obvious to
HIA practitioners who are outside the community. Stakeholders, however, may
have insights into local conditions and potential solutions for addressing con-
cerns raised by the proposal under consideration. Scoping should therefore entail
a deliberative process that involves engagement of stakeholders. Review of lit-
erature and a consideration of the social, economic, and political context of the
eventual decision are also important. In selecting the analytic methods that will
be used, the HIA practitioner should consider not only technical limitations but
what type of information will be most useful to decision-makers.
Finally, it is appropriate to include issues that are the subject of commu-
nity concern even if they seem unlikely to be substantiated by further analysis.
An HIA does not have to accept community concern uncritically. If the HIA is
based on a thorough analysis, provides complete information so that community
members are able to critique the analysis, and is conducted openly, it may pro-
vide reassurance to affected communities even if the conclusions do not support
the community’s concerns.

Assessment
The assessment phase includes two tasks. The first is to create a profile of
the population affected, which includes information on the demographics, base-
line health status, and social, economic, and environmental conditions that are
important to health. The second task is to analyze and characterize effects on
health and its determinants for the proposal and for any alternatives under con-
sideration relative to the baseline and to each other. As part of the assessment
phase, a set of specific indicators that can be used to describe the baseline and
potential changes in health status or health determinants should be developed.
The committee notes that a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches are
often used to generate predictions, but regardless of the methods used, most
available guidance emphasizes the importance of considering diverse forms of
evidence, a consistent and unbiased approach to selecting and interpreting evi-
dence, and a clear and transparent description of the analytic approach (WHO
1999; Mindell et al. 2008; Fredsgaard et al. 2009; Bhatia et al. 2010).
Given the broad scope of HIA practice settings, applications, and data
sources, the committee chose not to develop specific standards or criteria for
what constitutes “adequate” evidence or analysis for HIA. Other groups have
developed “standard” approaches to promote and evaluate practice quality, in-
cluding the quality of analysis (see, for example, Fredsgaard et al. 2009; Bhatia
et al. 2010). Instead, the committee focused its review on the characterization of
effects and the use of evidence, although several recommendations to improve
the quality of analysis are discussed in Chapter 4.
Baseline Profile
The baseline profile characterizes the health status of affected populations

and includes trends and factors (social, economic, and environmental) known to
affect health. Assessing the baseline health status of the affected population pro-
vides a reference point with which the predicted changes in health status may be
compared; it identifies any groups that could be more vulnerable than the gen-
eral population to the impacts of the proposal; and it provides an understanding
of the factors that are responsible for determining health in the affected commu-
nities, and this, in turn, allows for a better understanding of how any changes in
those factors may affect health. In general, the baseline profile focuses on health
issues and health determinants that may be affected by the proposal rather than
on attempting to provide a complete assessment of community health.
Various sources of population-health statistics at the national, state, and
local levels are available. But few data may be available on the geographic scale
of some decisions addressed in an HIA, such as decisions related to projects that
would affect a rural area or a single neighborhood. Moreover, disease rates in
small populations can vary substantially, and it may not be possible to calculate

them reliably. In such cases, HIAs often rely on data on a larger region and con-
sider whether the characteristics of the larger population can be generalized to
the affected community.
Sources of information used in a baseline profile might include census
data, hospital-discharge records, disease registries, and population and behavior
surveys, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, in which in-
formation is collected on different geographic scales. The baseline profile also
generally draws on data that describe the social, economic, and environmental
conditions important to health, such as labor or housing reports, environmental
impact assessments, and gray or unpublished data specific to the decision con-
text.
Developing a robust characterization of baseline health status and the so-
cial, economic, and environmental conditions important to health is a challeng-
ing aspect of HIA practice. In many cases, a complete and accurate description
of health and its determinants in the affected community may not be possible.
Some HIAs rely on proxy measures when rates of specific diseases are not
available or are too small to calculate. For example, rather than providing an
estimate of lung-cancer rates in a small community, an HIA might identify
smoking rates and important sources of airborne pollutants in the community’s
airshed. The committee notes that any limitations, incomplete data, and uncer-
tainty in the baseline analysis should be clearly stated. New surveys to address
data gaps or questions specific to the proposal in question are also common in
comprehensive HIAs.
Characterization of Effects
Regardless of whether effects are quantified, the assessment stage should

include a characterization of each effect to the greatest extent. Different HIA
guides vary somewhat as to the specific descriptors that should be used, and
practice is highly variable. The core issues that are commonly addressed are as
follows:
 Nature—describes the effect and the causal pathway.

 Direction—indicates whether the effect is adverse or beneficial. In
some cases, the direction of the effect may be unclear, or conflicting influences
on a given health outcome may be identified (Harris et al. 2007).
 Intensity—indicates the severity of the effect (for example, fatal, dis-
abling, or no disability).
 Magnitude—refers to the expected size of the effect and can be de-
scribed by the number of people affected or by expected changes in the fre-
quency or prevalence of symptoms, illness, or injury.
 Distribution—delineates the spatial and temporal boundaries of the ef-
fect and identifies various groups or communities that are likely to bear differen-
tial effects. This factor is important for ensuring that health equity is addressed.

Groups can be defined by age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, locational

disadvantage, and health status or disability (Harris et al. 2007). Recognizing
and addressing the effects of a proposal on health equity (or health disparities)
between various groups has been seen as a core task of HIA, although HIA prac-
tice has sometimes been criticized for a lack of attention to health equity (Scott-
Samuel 1996; WHO 1999; Harris et al. 2007).
 Timing and duration—indicates at what point of the proposed activity
(such as construction vs operation of a new power plant) the effect will occur,
how long it will last, and how rapidly the changes will occur; also discusses
whether effects are reversible or permanent.
 Likelihood—refers to the chance or probability that the effect will
occur.
 Confidence or certainty—characterizes the effect according to level of
confidence or certainty in the prediction; that characterization is based on the
strength of the evidence as described below.
Some HIA guides recommend using a matrix, such as those shown in Ta-
bles 3-2 and 3-3, to characterize effects (Harris et al. 2007; ICMM 2010). A
matrix can be a useful way to organize a qualitative analysis and to convey re-
sults in a manner that is easy to understand, but a matrix may also be misinter-
preted as being more objective than a simple description. It is important to note
that a matrix does not explain how evidence was used to reach conclusions. A
clear explanation should be provided with the characterization of effects that
indicates the evidence used to develop the matrix and any limitations, data gaps,
and uncertainties.
The committee notes that in addition to characterizing effects, HIAs may
provide conclusions on the significance—or societal importance—of the effects,
although this has been rare in U.S. practice. Assignment of significance rests on
the characterization of an effect as described above, but judgments regarding
what constitutes a significant impact are ultimately determined partly on the
basis of social and political values.
Evidence and Approaches
Characterization of health effects in HIA relies on qualitative and quantita-

tive evidence. The wide array of evidence includes public testimony on local
conditions and concerns, interviews with key informants, surveys, epidemi-
ologic analysis (for example, observational cross-sectional surveys, longitudinal
studies, and intervention or experimental studies), measurement of physical en-
vironmental conditions and modeling (for example, modeling of infectious-
disease propagation or dispersion of noise and air pollutants), and expert opin-
ion. In many cases, the first course of action is to gather information from pub-
lished literature, unpublished reports, administrative data gathered for routine

TABLE 3-2 Example of a Matrix for Analyzing Health Effects
Who benefits?
Main Health Who is
Health Outcome negatively Significance Degree of
Outcome or Health What is affected? Magnitude/ Likelihood/ of impact Confidence
or Health Determinant the health Who is Pathway of consequence probability (Magnitude × of the impact
Determinant Sub-Category impact? unaffected? health impact of impact of impact Likelihood) occurring
Whole
population, Low
vulnerable (possible)
Positive, group Medium
negative, Heath equity Low (probable) Low Low
uncertain Cumulative How does the Medium High Medium Medium
or no effect impacts impact occur High (definite) High High
Health Outcome
Infectious disease
Chronic disease
Nutritional
disorders
Injury
Mental health
and well-being
Health Determinant
Individual/ Physiological
family Behaviour
Socio-economic
circumstances
Environmental Physical
Social
Economic
Institutional Organization
of health care

Other institutions
Policies
Source: ICMM 2010. Reprinted with permission; copyright 2010, International Council on Mining and Metals.
63
TABLE 3-3 Example of a Table for Rating Importance of Health Effects

Likelihood of Occurrence of a Health Impact
Magnitude of impact Low Medium High
Health impact Likely to occur Likely to occur
rating Description Unlikely to occur sometimes often
0 None No significance No significance No significance
1 Low Very low Low significance Medium
significance significance
2 Medium Low significance Medium High significance
significance
3 High Medium High significance High significance
significance
Source: ICMM 2010. Reprinted with permission; copyright 2010, International Council
on Mining and Metals.
monitoring purposes, and other available documents. Such reviews of the exist-
ing literature are common. The degree to which they are systematic varies, and
some authors have suggested frameworks and guidance for conducting system-
atic reviews (Mindell et al. 2004, 2010). The available data, however, may not
be sufficient, and the HIA team may make a decision to dedicate resources to
collection of new data. The use of various types of evidence and approaches
used to make predictions are discussed below. The committee notes that each
approach for gathering and interpreting data may be conducted in ways that are
more or less participatory, engaging stakeholders in shaping the research ques-
tions, interpreting the findings, and developing recommendations on the basis of
the findings.
Qualitative evidence provides a context-specific view of people’s lives.
Qualitative data can be gathered through, for example, focus groups, one-on-one
interviews, surveys, individual meetings with stakeholder organizations, testi-
mony in community meetings, Web-based or other written input, and running a
stand or exhibition in a public place. Participatory approaches that actively en-
gage stakeholders in the process can yield rich information and provide oppor-
tunities for stakeholders—including community members—to influence the
questions asked and to participate in the interpretation of findings. The ap-
proaches can provide useful information on how people view the proposal, that
is, how it is expected to affect them and potentially improve or harm their qual-
ity of life. A central tenet is that people’s experience offers an invaluable per-
spective on the potential effects of the proposal.
The selection of qualitative and descriptive approaches will be informed
by the scale and size of the proposal, the profile of the affected population, and
the uses of the resulting information. Qualitative approaches can more easily
present the causal pathways in terms used by participants; this ensures that dif-
ferent voices are presented in the HIA and can increase the legitimacy and
stakeholder’s ownership of the process and results. Box 3-3 provides an example
of an assessment step that was based on interviews with people who were likely

to be affected by a decision and that considered their impressions of the effects

that industrial activities were having and were likely to continue to have on in-
dividual, family, and community life. The committee notes that qualitative so-
cial sciences and participatory-action research provide fertile ground for innova-
tive methods for HIA. However, it is important to note that the use of qualitative
approaches in HIA should not be interpreted as implying a need for less analytic
rigor. As for any other research method, qualitative analysis in HIA should use
appropriate methods and a clear, rigorous research design.
BOX 3-3 Assessment: Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

In 1998, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) completed a Northeast National
Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS). BLM later considered amending the EIS to make additional public lands available
for oil and gas leasing in the original 4.6-million-acre planning area. The local North
Slope Borough government—an agency that participated in preparing the EIS—
conducted an HIA, which was integrated into the EIS report.
The HIA drew on public testimony, literature review, and accepted mechanisms of
health and illness to establish the scope of health concerns that should be considered. A
logic framework was produced to guide the assessment. The associations between ex-
pected disturbances and changes in health were then analyzed in more depth to look at the
alternatives proposed for the expansion and at the cumulative effects of oil exploration
and extraction. The HIA team identified the pathways in which the expansion would
affect the lives of the primarily Iñupiat residents of the area. Activities directly or indi-
rectly associated with oil and gas—including aircraft traffic, seismic exploration, influx
of nonresident workers, and emissions and discharges—were identified, and pathways
were analyzed to consider their impacts on such problems as diet-related chronic illnesses
(for example, diabetes and hypertension), food insecurity, and social pathology (for ex-
ample, assault, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence). Those pathways and others were
evaluated by using public-health data, literature on analogous populations, knowledge
about accepted mechanisms of health and disease, witness testimony, and the effects
analysis of other resources.
The discussion described pathways by which Iñupiat health was likely to be af-
fected. For example, under Alternative A, diabetes and metabolic disorders would be
expected to increase if impacts on subsistence led to declining subsistence harvests
(through declining populations of subsistence resources, displacement of resources that
made hunting less successful, or displacement of hunters by oil activity and infrastruc-
ture). It identified which areas and villages were most likely to be affected and when. The
assessment also highlighted several potential benefits, such as “funding for infrastructure
and health care; increased employment and income; and continued funding of existing
infrastructure” (BLM 2007, p. 500). Because the biologists on the EIS team were uncer-
tain of the degree to which subsistence harvests might be favorably or adversely affected,
the HIA did not attempt to make quantitative estimates of the probability or intensity of
the impact.
Public-health professionals reviewed the results of the analysis. On the basis of the
findings, the HIA recommended a series of public-health mitigation measures that were
selected to maximize any favorable impacts and to minimize harms.
Source: Adapted from BLM 2007 and Wernham 2007.

Quantitative evidence can include routinely collected information, such

as mortality and census data, that can inform the baseline assessment. It can also
include information from social-science and epidemiologic studies regarding the
strength of associations between the social and physical environment (such as
air and water quality and economic impacts) and health outcomes—information
essential in the quantitative prediction of health effects. A large and growing
body of quantitative evidence is available; where specific additional information
is needed and resources are available, HIA teams may collect new quantitative
data in the course of conducting an assessment.
If there is a causal relationship between variables, a valid estimate of ef-
fect size, and data on how a decision will change the prevalence of a health-
related factor (exposure), it is possible to make quantitative predictions of ef-
fects (Fehr 1999; Veerman et al. 2005; Bhatia and Seto 2011). Potential health
effects have been estimated by using established approaches for quantitative
analysis, such as the calculation of the fraction of disease rates in a population
that can be attributed to the risk being analyzed and the application of avail-
able exposure-response functions to quantify cancer risk associated with in-
cremental changes in exposure to carcinogens. Additional modeling ap-
proaches, such as system-dynamic modeling and agent-based models, are also
promising and emerging tools that could have applications to health. Box 3-4
provides several examples of topics that have been addressed in HIA by using
quantitative methods.
Outputs of Assessment
Assessment should result in a report that
 Describes the baseline health status of the affected population with ap-
propriate indicators, including prevalent health problems, health disparities, and
social, economic, and environmental factors that affect health. The baseline
should be focused on the issues that are likely to be affected by the proposal.
 Analyzes beneficial and adverse health effects and characterizes the
changes in the indicators selected, to the extent possible, in terms of nature, di-
rection, intensity, magnitude, distribution in the population, timing and duration,
and likelihood.
 Integrates stakeholder input into the analysis of effects.
 Describes data sources and analytic methods and methods used to en-
gage stakeholders.
 Identifies limitations and uncertainties clearly.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Assessment
The selection of analytic methods for HIA is driven by the complex path-
ways and the multiple, sometimes conflicting, influences on any given health

outcome and is also affected by the decision-making context. Decision-making

is rarely based solely on scientific evidence but instead takes into account an
array of political, economic, technical, and practical considerations. Decisions
are often based on incomplete information and must often be made within a
specified time rather than waiting for more complete information. By necessity,
therefore, impact assessment is a pragmatic exercise and reflects a balance be-
tween scientific rigor and professional judgment. Expert judgment is central to
HIA but must be grounded in a solid foundation of scientific neutrality and ac-
cepted public-health principles. An explicit statement of data sources, methods,
assumptions, and uncertainty is essential, but uncertainty does not negate the
value of the information. Even when there is substantial uncertainty, an assess-
ment can illuminate potential causal pathways that—even when there appear to
be conflicting influences on a specific outcome—can point the way toward a
flexible framework for monitoring and managing any impacts that might occur
as the proposal is implemented.
Literature review provides much of the empiric evidence for most HIAs,
and whenever possible, assessors should conduct a systematic review of the lit-
erature for any health effects and determinants identified as high-priority issues
in scoping. Failing to undertake a systematic review may mean overlooking evi-
dence that would lead an assessor to a different conclusion. In practice, not all
HIAs have conducted systematic literature reviews or documented review meth-
ods. If it is not possible to undertake complete, systematic literature reviews for
an effect analyzed in an HIA, HIA practitioners must be vigilant to avoid selec-
tive searching and consideration of only studies that confirm particular conclu-
sions (Mindell et al. 2004). However the literature review is conducted, the
methods should be clearly described in the report, and any studies with conflict-
ing results acknowledged.
BOX 3-4 Examples of Health and Behavioral Effects That

Have Been Addressed Quantitatively in HIA
The bulleted list below provides examples in which some health impacts or behav-
ioral outcomes have been quantified. The committee notes that in any assessment, it
would be difficult or impossible to quantify all potential health impacts.
 Cancer risk associated with exposure to hazardous chemicals.

 Shortened life expectancy associated with air pollution.
 Injuries and fatalities associated with changes in vehicle traffic or speeds.
 Physical activity associated with changes in pedestrian infrastructure.
 Alcohol-consumption effects of alcohol taxes.
 Cancer risk and changes in life expectancy associated with tobacco taxes.
 HIV-AIDS infection risk associated with oil-pipeline construction.
 Life expectancy and physical function associated with income.
Sources: Veerman et al. 2005 and Bhatia and Seto 2011.

The reliability and validity of predictions made in HIAs have often been
questioned (Thomson 2008). That issue will probably continue to challenge the
credibility of HIA practice in the eyes of some audiences and highlights the need
for continued research and refinement of methods to improve its value to deci-
sion-makers (Petticrew et al. 2006). Issues surrounding uncertainty, literature
review, and reliability and validity of predictions are discussed in greater depth
in Chapter 4.
Recommendations
Recommendations identify specific actions that could be taken to avoid,

minimize, or mitigate harmful effects identified during the course of the HIA or
to take maximal advantage of opportunities for a proposal to improve health.
Depending on the nature of the proposal being assessed and the specific impacts,
recommendations can take various forms (see Box 3-5), such as the following:
 A major alternative to a proposal (for example, routing a proposed

highway away from a vulnerable population or building a light-rail line rather
than widening a road).
 Mitigation measures that address a specific impact identified in the
HIA and are intended to minimize a potential harm (for example, a measure to
reduce benzene emissions from gas wells near residential areas) or measures to
maximize a potential benefit.
 Health-supportive measures that would generally support health but are
not tied directly to a specific impact (for example, building a clinic in an under-
served neighborhood that would be adversely affected by emissions from a new
freeway).
 Adopting a position for or against a proposal (for example, support for
or opposition to a legislative proposal).
An HIA, however, might not provide any recommendations; this could oc-
cur if the HIA failed to reveal any important health effects. In some cases, the
lack of a recommendation may reflect a desire to avoid a perception that the
HIA is a one-sided advocacy exercise, particularly when options for recommen-
dations would involve adopting a position wholly supportive of or opposed to
the proposal being assessed.
The development of recommendations should be guided by a considera-
tion of any available evidence regarding effectiveness. Such evidence may come
from a review of published literature on interventions to address the health out-
comes of concern. Or, in some cases, there may be unpublished evaluations of
measures that have been implemented in similar scenarios. However, because
few studies have directly assessed the impact of the implementation of policies,
plans, programs, or projects on health outcomes, there may be little direct evi-

dence available with which to predict a given measure’s effectiveness. In those

cases, the HIA team may need to rely on established principles of health promo-
tion and disease prevention to develop approaches to minimizing or mitigating
the identified effects. The committee emphasizes that the effectiveness of rec-
ommendations depends not only on the scientific validity of the interventions
identified but on their relevance to the affected community’s concerns and their
applicability within the regulatory or legislative framework of the proposal be-
ing considered. Chapter 4 discusses the extent to which an HIA can ensure the
implementation of recommendations.
BOX 3-5 HIA Recommendations
HIA recommendations take various forms, and some examples are provided
below. The committee is not endorsing the HIAs or the recommendations, but sim-
ply providing examples.
 Alternative to a proposal. As described in Box 3-3, the HIA of oil and gas
leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska raised concerns regarding the
potential for adverse effects on the culture, well-being, and health of local residents
because of the risk of disrupting the local fish and game on which the community
depends for food. All three leasing alternatives presented in the environmental im-
pact statement raised similar concerns. To address the concerns, the North Slope
Borough suggested restrictions on leasing in a small percentage of the area. The final
decision by the Bureau of Land Management reflected a consideration of those con-
cerns and deferred leasing in the most critical fishing and hunting areas, which rep-
resented a small percentage of the total area available for leasing (BLM 2008).
 Mitigation measures. An HIA of rezoning from industrial to residential use
in San Francisco—a plan that would add 30,000 households—identified health-
related noise and air-quality issues for the proposed residential units. It recom-
mended new standards for ventilation and acoustical protection for new develop-
ment. As a result, the city adopted performance-based regulations to ensure indoor-
air quality and noise protections for all new residential development (Bhatia and
Wernham 2008).
 Mitigation and health-supportive measures. An HIA of proposed oil de-
velopment in Sakhalin Island, Russia, concluded that a large influx of oil and gas
workers from outside the region could increase the risk of sexually transmitted ill-
nesses in workers and the community. The HIA proposed mitigation measures (such
as restricting access to the work camp by local residents) and health-supportive
measures (such as “supporting the health community in improving STD programme
management”) (Balint et al. 2003).
 Adopting a position for or against a proposal. An HIA of proposed restric-
tions in the funding for the Massachusetts rental-voucher program for low-income
residents found that the restrictions could be harmful to health and recommended
against them (Child Health Impact Working Group 2005).

Recommendations are often developed throughout the HIA process. It is

common for mitigation measures and design alternatives to be considered during
scoping, to be refined as the assessment phase further characterizes the impacts
and identifies their importance, and to be made final during the recommenda-
tions phase. The process is analogous to the approach in the new risk-based de-
cision-making framework proposed in Science and Decisions (NRC 2009), in
which the primary objective of risk assessment is to help decision-makers
choose among risk-management options by providing information on health
risks that can be considered in the context of economic, social, and other factors.
Similarly, HIA recommendations concern measures that can be taken to protect
or improve health, but ultimately the decision-makers must weigh those recom-
mendations with the political, economic, social, and technical factors that are
relevant to the decision. In some cases, recommendations are developed by a
decision-maker in response to an HIA report (Quigley et al. 2006). As discussed
later in this section, recommendations can also establish a foundation for moni-
toring, and the results of the monitoring may indicate that the management
strategies need to be adapted to respond to the observed outcomes—a process
known as adaptive management (Johnson 1999).
The Roles of the Public and Decision-Makers
Public input while recommendations are being developed helps to ensure

that proposed measures are locally relevant, address context-specific factors that
might render them more or less effective, and address public concerns and
hopes. The success of recommendations ultimately depends on the public’s trust
in and support of them. For example, in Alaska, one of the adverse impacts of a
proposed mine expansion was the feared contamination of water and wildlife,
and evidence suggested that a fear of contamination might lead communities to
shy away from eating a traditional diet. To address that concern, monitoring of
concentrations of selected contaminants in local fish was proposed as a mitiga-
tion measure. Community input on the proposal suggested that for the program
to reassure community members effectively, the monitoring should be con-
ducted by an independent third party, and there should be strong community
oversight at each stage.
Because decision-makers must eventually translate health-based recom-
mendations into actionable measures (for example, by modifying legislation,
drafting regulations or permit conditions, instituting new zoning requirements,
or encouraging voluntary activities), regular communication between the HIA
team and the decision-makers is important for the success of a proposed recom-
mendation (EPA 2009). As in the realm of health risk assessment, there remains
a need to distinguish between the assessment and management phases to avoid
manipulation of analytic components by decision-makers. However, Science and
Decisions (NRC 2009) emphasizes that a detailed understanding of the decision
context is necessary for analyses to be scoped appropriately and that the concep-

tual distinction between assessment and management should not be interpreted

as a firewall that prevents communication between parties. Having transparency
throughout the process and clearly delineating the roles and responsibilities
among various parties will help to limit real and perceived bias. Mechanisms to
limit bias in decision-relevant analyses further are discussed in Chapter 4.
Health-Management Plan
HIA guidance often points out the need for monitoring and continuing
management and verification that mitigation measures are being implemented. A
plan for continuous monitoring, adaptation of mitigation measures, and verifica-
tion of performance—although not currently a uniform aspect of HIA practice—
helps to ensure that measures are carried out and achieving their objectives.
Such a plan is often referred to as a public-health management plan or a health-
action plan (Quigley et al. 2006). Recommendations form the core of a health-
management plan, but the plan also determines authority for and assigns respon-
sibility for implementing each recommendation, establishes a monitoring plan,
and creates or suggests mechanisms to verify that assigned responsibilities are
being met. Monitoring focuses on measures that are likely to be sensitive and
early indicators of change. Selection of appropriate indicators will be discussed
at greater length below in the section “Monitoring and Evaluation.”
The health-management plan suggests which stakeholder agency or entity
could take responsibility for implementing each recommendation. Recommen-
dations may be implemented through regulatory mandates or voluntary actions
by stakeholders. Industrial proponents, government decision-making agencies,
local health departments, and independent organizations (such as universities
and nongovernment organizations) may all be in a position to implement meas-
ures recommended in the HIA.
Management of the health effects of a proposal as it moves from planning
into implementation should be a dynamic process in which monitoring results
may drive continued adaptation of the health-management plan. As noted above,
the iterative process is known as adaptive management in the field of environ-
mental management.
Outputs of Recommendations
The recommendations should be provided in the final HIA report and

should document available supporting evidence, stakeholder input, and a health-
management plan, which should do the following:
 Discuss what entity has the authority or ability to implement each

measure and document any commitments to do so.
 Propose appropriate indicators for monitoring.

 Propose a system to verify that measures are being implemented as

planned.
If no recommendations are made in the HIA report, an explicit rationale

should be provided for the decision not to include them.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Recommendations
Making recommendations is a well-accepted part of HIA practice, but

relatively little attention has been paid to how they should be formulated. The
committee notes three considerations that may be particularly important for pro-
ducing effective, actionable recommendations. First, community input is essen-
tial especially for proposals that will affect the local community primarily.
Community input during the development of recommendations can ensure that
they address specific aspects of living conditions and community design that
may not be obvious to an outside researcher, and it provides an opportunity to
ensure that the recommendations address high-priority issues in a manner that is
acceptable to the affected community.
Second, recommendations are effective only if they are adopted and im-
plemented. Adoption of recommendations depends partly on the involvement of
decision-makers in the HIA process (Elliot and Francis 2005; Davenport et al.
2006). A gulf may exist between an intervention that is sound from a public-
health perspective and one that is acceptable and can be acted on within the
relevant regulatory or legal framework. Drafting measures that address identi-
fied public-health risks and that fulfill the requirements of the legal framework
governing a decision will increase the chances that HIA recommendations are
implemented. Drafting measures that can be readily incorporated into statutes,
regulations, zoning provisions, or permit conditions with little adaptation may
also increase chances of implementation. Collaboration with decision-makers or
consultation with experts familiar with the legal or regulatory context may be
the most effective way to ensure that recommendations are pragmatic and can be
practically incorporated into the decision-making process.
Third, recommendations should include the elements of a health-
management plan, including a consideration of appropriate indicators for moni-
toring, identification of entities that have the authority or ability to implement
each measure, and a mechanism for verifying implementation and compliance.
That permits recommendations to form the basis of effective implementation
and management rather than merely providing a static system without the capac-
ity to adapt. The process of implementing recommendations should be transpar-
ent and should include opportunities for public participation in the decision
process and clear mechanisms of accountability.
As a final note, it is important to remember the context in which HIAs are
conducted when considering the recommendations phase. As discussed at the
beginning of this chapter, HIAs in the United States are often conducted without

a formal legal mandate and by an agency or organization that does not have de-
cision-making authority. In practice, therefore, the HIA team will be asking a
decision-maker to consider the findings and recommendations. The decision-
maker must ultimately balance health considerations with the many technical,
social, political, and economic concerns that bear on the proposal. The use of the
information by the decision-maker is discussed at greater length in Chapter 4 in
the section “Managing Expectations.”
Reporting
Reporting is the communication of the findings and recommendations of

an HIA to decision-makers, the public, and other stakeholders. It includes the
production and dissemination of written materials that document the HIA proc-
ess, methods, findings, recommendations, and limitations of the analysis; and it
includes the public dissemination of results through other channels, such as
meetings with the public, decision-makers, and other stakeholders. The informa-
tion generated by the HIA process needs to be organized and presented in such a
way that it can be readily understood by the intended audiences and present a
compelling case for recommended actions. Box 3-6 shows how the results of an
HIA of proposals to provide paid sick days to employees were presented clearly
in a report with appropriate acknowledgement of the strengths and weaknesses
of the evidence. It also shows how HIA results can be disseminated widely in
different formats through a number of channels. For example, HIA reports can
be disseminated in hard copy, in electronic format, at public meetings, to focus
groups, or at different stages in the HIA process or policy cycle. The committee
notes that effective dissemination requires consideration of barriers—including
those associated with language, availability of child care, disability, access to
transportation, disenfranchisement, or literacy—and that multiple approaches
may be required for disseminating a single HIA so that all appropriate audiences
can be reached. That issue is addressed again in Chapter 4.
In some cases, the HIA process allows a period for formal public comment
on a draft of the HIA report. The final draft responds to public comments and
incorporates necessary changes or new information. The process mirrors the one
set out by NEPA for an environmental impact statement, but the practice is far
more variable for HIA. In other cases, a draft may be submitted to an internal
body, such as a steering group, whose comments are incorporated into a final
public version.
In practice, however, reporting may occur at earlier stages of the HIA
process and include public meetings; meetings with decision-makers, other
stakeholders, and advisers; and dissemination of interim public reports, such as a
scoping summary. HIA is meant to assist decision-makers, so although the act of
reporting is a formal step in the HIA process, it is also in the interest of decision-
makers and the HIA team to keep in constant communication throughout the
HIA process so that emerging results can be incorporated into the policy, plan,
program, or project.

BOX 3-6 Reporting: Legislation on Paid Sick Days
The National Partnership for Women and Families commissioned Human Im-
pact Partners and researchers at the San Francisco Department of Public Health to
conduct an HIA of the federal Health Families Act of 2009, which would guarantee
workers access to paid sick leave. The research was funded by the Annie E. Casey
Foundation as an initiative with the potential to encourage long-term strategies and
partnerships to strengthen families and communities. Human Impact Partners then
worked with groups in other states to extrapolate the findings of the national report
to local jurisdictions to analyze the health effects of paid sick days.
The report of the Healthy Families Act HIA provides a clear description of the
steps in the analytic process. The key findings are provided in the opening section of
the report, and they are categorized according to the strength of the evidence as
“highly likely,” “likely but less well-supported by the available evidence,” and
“plausible, but not well-supported.” For example, according to the report, a require-
ment for paid sick days is highly likely to lead to more workers taking leave to recu-
perate from an illness, to receive preventive care, or to care for ill children and de-
pendents. It is also highly likely to lead to “improved compliance with public-health
guidance regarding seasonal influenza and community mitigation strategies for pan-
demic influenza.” In contrast, effects that are likely but less well supported include
increased ambulatory or preventive primary care, fewer emergency-room visits by
workers who are insured, and greater compliance with infection-control policies.
Finally, effects that are plausible but are not supported by available evidence include
fewer hospitalizations because workers are able to receive the preventive primary
care needed to maintain good health.
The results of the HIA were presented in different formats; the full report was
accompanied by a summary and fact sheets. The findings of the HIA were covered
by newspapers and Web sites in California, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hamp-
shire; and the HIA researchers were interviewed on radio. The press coverage recog-
nized the tension between the burden that this new requirement would place on busi-
nesses and how the health of employees and the wider community are affected by
people who work while they are ill. Human Impact Partners noted that many—
including labor groups and funders—used the HIAs to assess work and family is-
sues. The HIAs also changed the debate in such a way that providing paid sick days
for employees began to be presented as a public-health issue rather than a labor is-
sue. For example, the chair of the California Assembly Labor Committee referred to
the HIA and “asked the opposition to the bill if they condoned the spread of disease
through restaurant workers.”
Sources: Adapted from Cook et al. 2009; Human Impact Partners 2009a,b; AECF
2011.
The quality of the report can be a criterion by which the quality of the
process is judged; that is, How clearly does the final document present the re-
sults of the analysis? It is critical to arrange the information logically so that
readers can navigate easily through the document, to provide a lay summary that

accurately describes the main findings and conclusions of the study, and to ref-
erence all data and sources accurately (Fredsgaard et al. 2009).
Transparency of HIA
HIAs in the private sector are increasingly common, pursuant to internal

corporate guidelines or requirements of lending banks, such as the International
Finance Corporation and World Bank (see Appendix A for further discussion)
(Birley 2005; IPIECA/OGP 2005; McHugh et al 2006; ICMM 2010; IFC 2007,
2010).3 Few, however, are made public. Disclosure requirements and practices
vary considerably among development lenders and private-sector proponents.
The World Bank and International Finance Corporation have policies governing
the disclosure of information, and although the policies differ, both provide for
withholding or excluding documents that might contain proprietary information
or information whose disclosure could damage a client or lender’s financial,
political, or legal interests (Halifax Initiative Coalition 2006; IFC 2006, 2010;
McHugh et al. 2006; World Bank 2010). For private corporations undertaking
an HIA, the decision of whether to make an HIA public and what to disclose
may be governed by internal corporate policies, by the standards of lenders sup-
porting the project, or by a government that has jurisdiction over the project
(McHugh et al. 2006). A number of corporations and professional associations,
such as the International Committee on Mining and Metals and the International
Association of Oil and Gas Producers, have guidance for HIA, but relatively few
completed industry-led HIAs or environmental, social, and health impact as-
sessments are available on the Internet or on public Web sites that catalog HIA
activity.
A related issue is incomplete disclosure—such as disclosure of only sum-
mary information without data or analysis, disclosure only by electronic media
in communities unlikely to have access, and English-only reports. Incomplete
disclosure may substantially limit access to complete information regarding the
process, data sources, methods, and findings of an HIA for those who will be
affected by the proposal being assessed (McHugh et al. 2006).
Failure to disclose HIA results and incomplete disclosure are not restricted
to industry. Public agencies might not disclose or might redact or otherwise limit
disclosure of information. Similarly, HIAs sponsored by private nonprofit or-
ganizations may not have requirements for disclosure inasmuch as most U.S.
HIAs are not done under a legal mandate that requires disclosure. However,
many HIA reports are available from public agencies, universities, and nonprofit
organizations, and the committee found few examples of HIAs led or commis-
3
The committee is referring here to HIAs sponsored or led by private-sector entities
that are not part of any formal government process, such as a permitting or regulatory
requirement. HIAs conducted as part of a formal government process are generally sub-
ject to disclosure and freedom-of-information requirements.

sioned by the private sector that were available. Given that HIA led by the pri-
vate sector appears to be a rapidly increasing practice, the issue of availability
bears further consideration.
Outputs of Reporting
The final HIA report should document the following:
 The nature of the proposal being assessed, including alternatives that

were included in the analysis.
 The population, subgroups, vulnerable populations, and stakeholders
likely to be affected and how they were involved in the HIA process.
 Data sources and analytic tools used.
 Findings of each stage of the HIA and a summary of outputs at the end
of each stage.
In addition to a final report, stand-alone executive summaries or fact sheets can

help to disseminate and communicate the findings and recommendations of an
HIA to various key audiences.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Reporting
Across the field, there is little uniformity in the content of written HIA re-
ports. The committee finds that an HIA report should at least describe the pro-
posal and alternatives that are the subject of the HIA, the data sources and ana-
lytic methods used, the groups and individuals that were consulted in the course
of the HIA, the process and findings of each step of the HIA, and the overall
conclusions and recommendations. The HIA conclusions and recommendations
should be presented in a manner that is clear and easily understood.
The committee recommends that HIAs be publicly released and dissemi-
nated. Although little has been written on the reasons for keeping HIA informa-
tion confidential, the committee recognizes that there may be reasons for organi-
zations conducting HIAs to decide not to disclose the results. For example, there
may be concerns about risks to a proponent’s reputation or to the viability and
public acceptance of a proposed project if a report discloses important unmiti-
gated adverse impacts or potential impacts that are uncertain or for which strong
evidence does not exist. There could also be concerns that disclosure of such
information would lead to litigation. Furthermore, impact assessments, including
HIAs, may rely on proprietary business information whose disclosure is legally
barred or could damage a proponent’s business edge or competitiveness.
Notwithstanding those considerations, the committee considers the public
disclosure of HIAs to be an important ideal of practice but recognizes that it may
not be realistic to expect widespread disclosure in the absence of requirements
or incentives for it. However, the committee notes that there are several benefits

of disclosure for industry, policy-makers, and the affected communities. First,

disclosure informs affected communities and individuals and possibly other
stakeholders, such as government agencies and officials, of possible effects on
their health and well-being, a core objective of HIA. Second, it allows findings
to be reviewed and improved. Third, it informs government agencies and offi-
cials of potential changes in demand for services, such as health care, emergency
response, and public safety; this can facilitate an appropriate response. Fourth,
disclosure of potential impacts may benefit industry by reducing the risk of liti-
gation and by reducing tort liability by fulfilling requirements to warn those
potentially responsible and potentially affected before the effects occur. Fifth,
transparent reporting of possible environmental and health impacts has proved in
many studies to lead to risk reduction because it motivates changes, such as im-
proved pollution controls, on the part of industry and governments (Wolf 1996;
Bennear and Olmstead 2008; Vaccaro and Madsen 2009). Sixth, because many
established environmental risk factors are found at higher concentrations in vul-
nerable communities, disclosure of risks may be an important way to reduce
health disparities and address concerns about environmental justice (Miranda et
al. 2008). Seventh, disclosure allows people to take voluntary actions to avoid
risk (Neidell 2009). For those reasons, the committee concludes that HIAs—
including, to the extent practical, the data used for the analysis, analytic meth-
ods, assumptions, findings, uncertainties, data gaps, and recommendations—
should be made public.
A well-designed dissemination strategy is critical for the success of an
HIA. The dissemination strategy should be developed in a systematic manner,
should consider what groups need or will rely on the information (including
stakeholders and decision-makers), and should determine the most effective
ways to present the information to these groups, taking into account any barriers
or challenges.
Simply producing and disseminating a report may not be sufficient to
secure adoption and implementation of HIA recommendations. Robust and
continuing efforts to inform decision-makers of the findings and recommenda-
tions of the HIA and efforts by HIA practitioners and other stakeholders to
champion choices that will benefit health can be an essential part of an effec-
tive HIA. Available studies suggest that efforts to involve and inform deci-
sion-makers throughout the HIA process and a strong relationship between the
HIA team and decision-makers are often critical for the HIA’s effectiveness
(Veerman et al. 2005; Morgan 2011). It is critical for the credibility of the
HIA that the measures or outcomes being promoted are grounded in full and
transparent consideration of the evidence that supports and does not support
the issue in question. Efforts to support health-based recommendations must
be carefully distinguished from biased efforts to promote a specific outcome
or measure on the basis of an incomplete or inaccurately weighted comparison
of favorable and unfavorable aspects of a proposal or of a predetermined po-
litical agenda. The committee recognizes that undue bias in an HIA may com-
promise its credibility and efficacy.

Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation are often, although variably, described as the

final stage of HIA (see Appendix E). Some have suggested that evaluation
should be considered as outside the HIA process itself because of the need for an
independent and objective perspective, particularly for impact evaluation
(Bhatia et al. 2009). Several types of evaluation may be conducted on an HIA,
including the following:
 Process evaluation. Considers whether the HIA was carried out accord-
ing to the plan of action and applicable standards.
 Impact evaluation. Seeks to understand the impact of the HIA itself on
the decision-making process or on other factors outside the specific decision
being considered.
 Outcome evaluation. Focuses on the changes in health status or health
indicators resulting from implementation of the proposal.
In practice, most HIAs do not include process, impact, or outcome evalua-

tion; this has been attributed to a lack of interest, time, and resources in the case
of process and impact evaluation and to the length of time (often many years)
required for observing changes related to implementation. The discussion below
briefly provides definitions and key features of HIA monitoring and evaluation.
Monitoring
As previously described in the section on “Recommendations,” monitor-

ing can refer to tracking changes in health indicators as a new project or policy
is implemented and has been defined as outcome monitoring. Indicators may be
health outcomes in some cases, whereas health determinants may be more ap-
propriate in others. For example, if a traffic-calming infrastructure was installed
on a street that had a high rate of pedestrian injury, it may be appropriate to
monitor injury rates directly because changes would be expected as soon as the
installation was complete. In contrast, the effect of decisions on some health
outcomes (such as cancer or obesity) may take years to occur and may have
multiple contributing factors. In those cases, it may be more appropriate to
monitor exposures—such as environmental concentrations of a carcinogen or
the availability of safe walking corridors—that are linked to the outcome of in-
terest by public-health evidence.
Process Evaluation
Process evaluation assesses the design and execution of the HIA in light of
its intended purpose and plan of action and applicable practice standards. Proc-

ess evaluation can range from a simple self-assessment that is undertaken at the
end of an HIA and focuses on a few variables that are relatively simple to de-
scribe, track, or measure—such as the methods used, degree of certainty of pre-
dictions, and approach to stakeholder engagement—to a more comprehensive
case study that seeks to evaluate the HIA process holistically. Observing and
documenting the HIA process—such as methods of engaging stakeholders and
interacting with decision-makers and approaches to addressing analytic chal-
lenges—and interviewing participants and stakeholders are the main methods of
process evaluation.
Impact Evaluation
Impact evaluation attempts to judge whether the HIA influenced the deci-
sion-making process, that is, whether and to what degree the recommendations
were adopted and implemented and how the HIA influenced the decision-
making process. It can also assess whether the HIA had other important effects,
such as building new collaborations among agencies, ensuring that stakeholder
perspectives were considered, and increasing awareness of previously unrecog-
nized health considerations. In some cases, the impact of the HIA on a decision
is clear-cut. For example, in the Alaskan oil and gas HIA mentioned in Box 3-3,
the HIA team drafted recommendations in collaboration with the decision-
maker, the Bureau of Land Management, which formally adopted the recom-
mendations as mitigation measures.
In other cases, it may not be possible to attribute a particular decision to
the influence of an HIA (Wismar et al. 2007). For example, in Oregon, an inde-
pendent health-oriented nonprofit organization conducted an HIA of a series of
proposals to reduce vehicle miles traveled in a bill intended to reduce green-
house-gas emissions (UPH 2009). The enacted legislation is consistent with
some of the recommendations of the HIA, but there were no data to evaluate
whether those drafting the legislation were influenced by the recommendations;
there were no interviews with legislators over the course of the legislative
process (Human Impact Partners 2010). Observations that might indicate some
influence of the HIA include discussion about HIA by legislators debating a
proposal. In that case, a robust evaluation method, such as interviews conducted
with decision-makers before and after the HIA, could provide the data needed to
gauge the effect on decisions.
Impact evaluation can also help to determine an HIA’s effectiveness rela-
tive to the objectives set out during screening and scoping. In most cases, influ-
encing decisions to protect or promote health is a central objective but by no
means the sole outcome of value. As discussed above, additional benefits may
include, for example (Wismar et al. 2007; Harris-Roxas and Harris 2011),
 Alerting decision-makers to the more general need to focus on health in

future decisions.

 Developing new cross-disciplinary and interagency collaborations.

 Identifying data gaps and questions for future research.
 Establishing a foundation for appropriate monitoring.
 Ensuring that the public has accurate and complete information on ad-
verse and beneficial effects.
 Developing new forecasting methods.
 Improving relationships and collaboration between stakeholders.
Outcome Evaluation
Whereas HIA aims to predict the effects of a decision before it occurs,

outcome evaluation assesses whether the implementation of a decision has ac-
tual effects on health or health determinants (Parry and Kemm 2005). Outcome
evaluation requires a suitable research design, ideally an appropriate comparison
group, and data from the monitoring of health outcomes or of changes in health
determinants as described above. The committee notes that outcome evaluation
considers the effects of the whole decision, including changes made as a result
of HIA recommendations. Thus, it is generally not possible to attribute out-
comes specifically to HIA recommendations because they are implemented with
the decision.
Evaluation of whether a decision has changed specific health outcomes
may often be difficult or impossible because of the complex and multifactorial
causal pathways involved in many health outcomes, the length of time from im-
plementation of a decision to observable changes in health indicators, and the
lack of suitable comparison groups (Quigley and Taylor 2004; Parry and Kemm
2005). However, in some cases, the relationships between the implemented de-
cision and health determinants may be more direct and measurable. Because of
the timeframe of proposal implementation and effects on health, outcome
evaluation often requires a long-term research commitment. The committee
notes that outcome evaluation of policy experiments is a field independent of
HIA, and many large-scale social interventions—such as Head Start and Moving
to Opportunity—have been subject to outcome evaluation that has included con-
sideration of health or health determinants (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2003;
Schweinhart et al. 2005; Frank et al. 2006; Jagannathan et al. 2010). There are,
however, no current examples of HIAs in the United States that include outcome
evaluation as described here.
Outputs of Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring should provide information that allows one to conduct the

evaluations noted above. An evaluation plan should have been developed early
in the HIA process to guide selection of the appropriate methods for conducting

evaluations. An evaluation report should be produced at the conclusion of the

HIA that includes the following:
 An evaluation of the HIA process against the HIA plan and applicable
standards and consideration of whether the process used was appropriate given
the decision-making context, needs, objectives, and resources available (a proc-
ess evaluation).
 A description of the HIA’s impact on decision-making (to the extent
that salient decisions have occurred by that time) as measured by an accounting
of HIA recommendations that were adopted and an evaluation of available evi-
dence that suggests whether and how the HIA played a role in decisions or con-
tributed to changes in decision-makers’ knowledge, attitudes, or positions.
 A discussion of whether the HIA achieved its initial objectives.
 Acknowledgement of plans for future outcome evaluation or discussion
of limitations that prevent such an evaluation.
Committee Conclusions Regarding Monitoring and Evaluation
Few HIA evaluation data have been published in the United States and
relatively few elsewhere. The committee notes that some guides consider
evaluation not as a step of HIA but rather as an independent practice that sup-
ports the development of the field (see Appendix E). Although completed HIA
reports are readily available, peer-reviewed or gray literature that discusses the
impacts of specific HIAs is still rare. Evaluation is important for the quality of
individual HIAs and for the success of the HIA field as a whole. It is not reason-
able to expect decision-makers to adopt HIA widely in the absence of evidence
of its effectiveness and value. Consequently, the committee concludes that the
lack of attention to evaluation is a barrier that will need to be overcome if HIA
practice is to be advanced in the United States.
Evaluation can be thought of in two useful and complementary ways: self-
evaluation of the HIA process and impacts and independent external evaluation.
Self-evaluation performed by the HIA team—for example, against a set of proc-
ess objectives or practice criteria—serves quality-assurance aims and can pro-
duce insights that will improve the field. Self-evaluation should be considered a
valuable step of the HIA process. It may lack the objectivity and rigor of an ex-
ternal evaluation conducted by an experienced evaluator, but it is important be-
cause it contributes to a database that informs other efforts in the field and pro-
vides basic information about the applications of HIA, the methods and
strategies used by HIA practitioners, and the success of and challenges to its use.
In contrast, independent evaluation can yield unbiased insights about an HIA
from the perspectives of stakeholders and decision-makers, can contribute to a
more robust external peer review, and can provide rich information regarding
the strengths, weaknesses, and most effective methods and approaches in the
field.

The characteristics and approaches of evaluation should be chosen to fit

the time, resources, and data available to the HIA team. Building evaluation into
the plans for an HIA early in the process may support and reinforce a more de-
liberate and careful approach to designing and implementing the HIA itself. Al-
though HIA may not always include or provide resources for independent
evaluation, more in-depth, independent evaluation will generate more robust
conclusions about HIA’s effectiveness and best practices in the field and should
be given high priority. The committee considers self-evaluation and independent
evaluation to be essential for moving the field ahead.
Outcome evaluation will continue to be challenging, but it can generate
useful information in well-selected cases. Monitoring outcomes can in some
cases help to test the validity of predictions and inform future analytic methods.
Although there are many potential benefits of undertaking an HIA, one common
objective is to inform decisions to promote changes that support improvements
in health determinants or health outcomes. For that reason, it is important for the
field to define the circumstances under which outcome evaluation may be prac-
ticable. Outcome evaluation should be undertaken when available resources and
data will allow reasonable judgments regarding the association between the im-
plementation of decisions and observed changes in health outcomes or health
determinants.
SUMMARY: WHAT CRITERIA DEFINE A

HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT?
This chapter has described HIA categories, defined HIA, discussed current
HIA practice, noted variations in practice, and provided the committee’s conclu-
sions regarding each step of the HIA process. The discussion recognizes that the
practice of HIA varies because it is adapted for use in different decision-making
contexts. The variability also reflects a lack of clear criteria that define HIA as a
distinct field. On the basis of its review of available literature, HIA guides, and
practice standards, the committee has synthesized the key criteria that define
HIA and that set it apart from related approaches to public-health practice and
policy. Not all HIAs will meet all proposed criteria, but the criteria are intended
to describe typical practice. Although deviation from the criteria may occur, a
valid and clearly articulated rationale for such deviation should be described
when the HIA is reported.
 Health impact assessment is conducted to inform a decision-making

process and is intended to be concluded and communicated in advance of the
decision that is being assessed.
 It develops the scope of health effects for analysis through systematic
consideration of all factors associated with the proposed action that have a po-
tential to influence health, and it narrows the scope to effects that are judged
most important for health.

 It identifies a baseline that describes the health status of populations

that will be affected by the decision.
 It characterizes health effects according to their nature, direction, inten-
sity, magnitude, distribution, timing and duration, and likelihood.
 It uses the best available evidence to analyze effects on health and
health disparities.
 It solicits and responds to input from stakeholders throughout all stages
of the process and includes publicly available and accessible documentation of
processes, products, and sponsors.
 It recommends measures, in the context of the proposed action, to pro-
tect and promote health and reduce health disparities.
 It follows a systematic process that includes screening, scoping, as-
sessment, recommendations, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation.
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Current Issues and Challenges in

the Development and Practice of
Health Impact Assessment
Chapter 2 discussed the need for health-informed decisions and the advan-
tages of using health impact assessment (HIA) to evaluate the potential health
consequences of an array of projects, plans, programs, and policies. Chapter 3
provided a framework for HIA and highlighted critical elements of each step in
the HIA process. This chapter identifies and explores several topics considered
by the committee to be the most salient issues or challenges for the successful
emergence, development, and practice of HIA. First, the committee addresses
how health should be defined for HIA and how its definition influences the ap-
plication and scope of HIA practice. Types of decisions that are potential candi-
dates for HIA are then considered. The committee next reviews several method-
ologic issues for HIA, including the need to balance timely information with
variable data quality, expectations for quantitative estimates, synthesizing con-
clusions on dissimilar health effects, assigning monetary values to health out-
comes, enabling stakeholder participation, and the benefits of a peer-review
process for HIA. The committee then examines the potential for conflicts of
interest among HIA practitioners, sponsors, and funders and considers whether it
is realistic to expect the practice of HIA to result in a change in the decision
being made. The committee concludes with a discussion of how HIA is related
to the consideration of human health effects in environmental impact assessment
(EIA) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and similar
state laws.
DEFINING HEALTH FOR HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
How health is defined and considered by society and government institu-

tions—that is, what is or is not considered by practitioners, decision-makers, and
90

Current Issues and Challenges in Development and Practice of HIA 91
stakeholders to have relevance to and a bearing on health—ultimately estab-

lishes the boundaries for HIA practice. That determination will clearly influence
which decisions are considered appropriate subjects for HIA and which health
effects are considered to be within its scope. Many have recognized that a nar-
row definition of health or factors that influence health probably limits the
scope, application, and value of the practice.
The constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) considers
health broadly and states that “health is a state of complete physical, mental, and
social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO
1946, p. 100). Although there are many definitions of health—many less expan-
sive than the WHO definition—there is a growing consensus that health at the
individual and population levels is shaped by a combination of genetic, behav-
ioral, social, economic, political, and environmental factors. As discussed in
Chapter 2, the root causes or determinants of health include the quality and ac-
cessibility of infrastructure, such as housing, schools, parks, and transportation
systems; the safety of the environment and economic security; the number and
quality of social interactions; cultural characteristics, such as diet; and the level
of equity and social inclusion. It is therefore essential that those many determi-
nants be considered in defining the boundaries of HIAs. In the present commit-
tee’s view, HIA must be concerned broadly with individual and public health
and all its social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental determinants.
Using such a broad definition of health has clear implications for which
decisions may be subject to HIA, the scope of issues and measures used to char-
acterize health in HIA, and how health effects are weighed in relation to compet-
ing outcomes. In general, the public-health practice has traditionally defined
health more narrowly and focused on disease, morbidity, and longevity. Thus,
many decisions that affect health determinants have been considered outside the
scope and mandate of public-health institutions. As discussed in Chapter 2, the
failure to attend to the broader health determinants—for example, economic
conditions—have contributed to avoidable disease and health disparities (CSDH
2008). However, broadening the definition of health has implications for the
work of other sectors and their relationships with each other and with public
health. Expecting institutions outside the health-care and public-health sectors to
advance public-health interests will be challenging because actions needed to
protect and promote health are often in conflict with the interests and objectives
of other sectors. Critics may question whether addressing public-health objec-
tives should be weighed more heavily than meeting the objectives of the sector
in whose domain a decision is being debated. Ultimately, broadening the defini-
tion of health creates the setting where tradeoffs among health and other social
objectives can be made transparently. Recent calls for public agencies to con-
sider and take actions to improve health indicate changing attitudes and the need
to create a more multidisciplinary approach to public health (CSDH 2008). The
committee supports the recent government actions and emphasizes the need to

define health broadly in the practice of HIA but recognizes that implementation
will require some care to balance health with the many other considerations that
are important to any given decision.
ARE ALL DECISIONS POTENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR

HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT?
A frequent question—given the breadth of potential applications of HIA—

is whether there is a limit on the types of decisions to which the practice might
be applied. For example, is HIA better suited to decisions in particular policy
sectors (such as education, urban planning, and finance), to a particular scale
(such as policy vs project) or jurisdictional level, or to particular health out-
comes? The question is important because there are few formal requirements for
analyzing the health effects of decisions except for the requirements for health
analysis under NEPA and state environmental policy acts (SEPAs), and as de-
mand for HIA grows, there will be a greater need to target its applications effi-
ciently.
The broad definition of health discussed above suggests that a wide array
of decisions—including some of those made in almost all government sectors on
local, state, national, and international scales—may be appropriate candidates
for HIA (Harris-Roxas and Harris 2011). A review of the sectors in which HIAs
have been completed in the European Union (EU) (Wismar et al. 2007) and in
the United States (Dannenberg et al. 2008; HIA-CLIC 2010; RWJF/PEW 2011)
underscores this breadth of potential applications (see Table 4-1). Although
most U.S. examples reflect applications in the transportation, housing, or urban-
planning sectors, there is growing diversity in the United States and a wider di-
versity in the existing spectrum of EU applications. The growth may be because
of greater experience with and public support for HIA and increased public rec-
ognition of the many determinants of health.
In the committee’s view, restricting the spectrum of HIA practice to par-
ticular decisions, sectors, decision scales, jurisdictional levels, or health issues is
unwarranted. At this early stage, there is no evidence to suggest that HIA is
more important, appropriate, or effective in any particular decision context. On
the contrary, HIA may be useful across a broad array of decision contexts, in-
cluding many decision types to which it has not yet been applied. Furthermore,
new global health challenges are likely to emerge from issues related to atmos-
pheric and climate change, population growth, food and land scarcity, revolu-
tionary industrial technologies (such as nanotechnology and gene modification),
globalization, and economic inequities (WWF/ZSL/Global Footprint Network
2010). For example, a changing climate and an increase in extreme weather
events will have many effects, including widespread effects on health (Costello
et al. 2009; Luber and Prudent 2009). Public policy in general and public health
and HIA in particular must recognize the emerging challenges and support the

identification of adaptive and preventive strategies. HIA may play a substantive

role in emphasizing the importance of the emerging issues to public health and
to policy-makers and stakeholders.
TABLE 4-1 Health Impact Assessment by Sector

Sectora European Unionb United Statesc
Transport 27 (17%) 21 (28%)
Housing or urban planning 23 (15%) 28 (38%)

Environment 18 (11%) 3 (4%)
Health 14 (9%) 0 (0%)
Employment 10 (6%) 4 (5%)
Social care 8 (5%) 0 (0%)
Finance 8 (5%) 0 (0%)
Energy 7 (4%) 8 (11%)
Agriculture 7 (4%) 2 (3%)
Industry 4 (3%) 5 (7%)
Education 3 (2%) 3 (4%)
Tourism 2 (1%) 0 (0%)

Multiple sectors 17 (11%) 0 (0%)
Other 10 (6%) 0 (0%)

Total 158 74
a
The list of sectors was taken from Wismar et al. (2007). The authors did not provide the
criteria used to determine whether a report was considered an HIA, and they did not ex-
plicitly define how HIAs were categorized into sectors. There is clearly potential for poli-
cies, plans, programs, and projects to fall into two or more categories.
b
Wismar et al. (2007) was used as the source for the EU data.
c
HIAs conducted in the United States were identified from lists maintained by the Health
Impact Project (RWJF/PEW 2011), the University of California, Los Angeles (HIA-
CLIC 2010), and Dannenberg et al. (2008) and from committee experience. To be in-
cluded in the table, an HIA must have been identified as such by the authors and must
have documented at least some steps of the HIA process. The committee recognizes that
the list may not be up to date or exhaustive, but the table shows examples of the sectors
that do HIAs. As seen here, many more HIAs have been carried out in the EU than in the
United States. In both the United States and the EU, HIAs are carried out most often in
the transportation, housing, and urban-planning sectors.

Although most decisions have the potential to affect health, conducting

HIAs of all decisions is clearly not practical or expected. Accordingly, HIA pro-
ponents should try to select decisions that have the greatest opportunities for
advancing public-health goals and promoting the awareness of the health impli-
cations of decision-making. As described in Chapter 3, one purpose of the
screening step in HIA is to focus HIA on high-priority topics by explicitly con-
sidering the value of conducting HIA in a particular situation. For example, find-
ings of an HIA of a proposed decision may be appropriately applied to a similar
decision in another context or on another scale (for example, regulations for
labor standards on city, state, and federal scales), so the value of conducting
another HIA may be diminished.
The committee emphasizes that as long as HIA is conducted as a voluntary
process, it will be difficult to ensure that it is directed at the most important
health priorities and decision opportunities. Aside from the limited analysis of
health effects that is currently conducted within the regulatory structure of EIA,
practitioners of or those funding or sponsoring HIA are in most cases selecting
decisions by using ad hoc mechanisms based on their own interests and goals
and are considering a limited set of candidate decisions (for example, land-use
projects in a particular locality). Without clear mandates, screening criteria, and
procedural rules for HIA, the selective approach to conducting an HIA may miss
decisions for which HIA would have value and produce some HIAs that have
little utility for decision-makers or stakeholders.1 Furthermore, HIA could con-
ceivably contribute to health inequities if more socioeconomically or politically
advantaged communities develop greater capacity to demand HIA or if health
issues that are highlighted in HIA are focused on the health needs of the advan-
taged.
In contrast, institutional rules for HIA—for example, rules articulated in
laws at the local, state, or federal level—could establish consistent procedures
for the field and ensure that a sufficiently broad set of candidate decisions are
screened. For example, decisions subject to HIA might be selected and ranked
on the basis of the likelihood of addressing the Healthy People 2020 objectives
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or on the basis of the
most realistic opportunities to address environmental injustice or to reduce
health inequities. Institutional rules could effectively narrow a large number of
candidate decisions to a manageable ordered set, enhance the use of HIA, and
advance its rationale and equitable use. Such rules could also help to organize
and direct the creation of a coherent and systematic body of knowledge about
decision-related health effects and analytic methods that could be used for HIA.
1
The committee notes that although screening is considered an essential step in the
HIA process, there is little published documentation or evaluation on the implementation
of the screening step and thus little information on cases in which HIA might have been
considered and not conducted. Some but not all HIA reports explain the rationale for
conducting the assessment, but still there is little understanding of why HIAs have or
have not been pursued.

Thus, the committee finds that any future policies, standards, or regulations for
HIA should include explicit criteria for identifying and screening candidate de-
cisions and rules for providing oversight for the HIA process; such criteria and
rules would promote the utility, validity, and sustainability of HIA practice.
BALANCING THE NEED TO PROVIDE

TIMELY, VALID INFORMATION WITH THE
REALITIES OF VARIED DATA QUALITY
A substantial challenge facing HIA practitioners is the quality and avail-

ability of evidence on which to base predictions about health effects (Mindell et
al. 2004; Petticrew 2007; Veerman et al. 2007; Bhatia and Seto 2011; Mindell et
al. 2010). More broadly, scholars acknowledge that the studies and empirical
evidence linking improvements in health directly to changes in specific public
policies are sparse (Curtis et al. 2002; Dow et al. 2010; Graham 2010). Further-
more, many decisions occurring outside the health sector have not previously
been seen as important for health, so they have typically not been the subject of
rigorous empirical health research. Thus, making prospective judgments about
the effects of policy decisions on health is challenging, and concerns about va-
lidity arise in the face of variable and often sparse evidence.
The committee emphasizes that concerns about validity must be balanced
against the reality that decisions that are not informed by health analysis have
the potential to harm health (see Chapter 2); this implies that the degree to which
the evidence limits judgments must always be weighed against the potential se-
verity and scope of harm that could occur if available information were not con-
sidered. But practitioners should also consider the risk, both to optimal decision-
making and to the legitimacy of the field, that is inherent in overstating the pre-
cision or certainty of health-effect estimates provided by HIA.
There are challenges to addressing concerns about the validity of HIA
predictions. Regardless of evidence-related constraints, HIA must operate in the
context of practical realities and timelines of the decision-making process, and
HIA reports need to express clearly the quality of evidence and the degree of
confidence in inferences drawn from the evidence. The committee notes that
society regularly accepts such practical limitations in making policy decisions
and that predictive certainty or causal certainty would be an impractical standard
for HIA.
Practical and agreed-on methods for addressing concerns about validity
are needed, and the committee offers three strategies, discussed below, that
should help to improve the validity of health-effects judgments made in the con-
text of variable evidence:
 Consider diverse evidence sources by using expertise in multiple disci-

plines.
 Assess the quality of available evidence.

 Include a strategy for assessing and managing uncertainty.
HIA practitioners can also learn from the health-risk-assessment field where
some analysts have demonstrated the ability to adapt their analyses to varied
evidence, ranging from data extrapolated from the literature when local informa-
tion is lacking to primary reliance on local data that leverage knowledge and
statistical power from the broader literature (Hubbell et al. 2009).
Consider Diverse Evidence Sources by Using

Expertise in Multiple Disciplines
As discussed in Chapter 3, many types of evidence can be used in HIA,

including peer-reviewed academic studies; unpublished, publicly available stud-
ies and databases, that is, gray literature; survey, monitoring, or interview data
specific to the affected population or to the policy, plan, program, or project in
question; the experience of people who will be affected by the proposed
changes; and expert opinion. The committee recommends that practitioners re-
view all the available evidence systematically (Mindell et al. 2010). Practitioners
should use published, peer-reviewed systematic reviews—such as those con-
ducted by the Cochrane Collaboration, WHO, the U.S. Environmental Protec-
tion Agency, and other authoritative bodies—if they are available. Although
studies conducted within the population that might be affected are ideal, they
may not exist or be feasible to conduct, so analysis will turn to literature and
data on other populations.
HIA is necessarily a multidisciplinary practice. It is often, although not
exclusively, carried out by public-health professionals, but it almost always re-
quires access to experts in the core domains that are affected by the proposal
under consideration. Multiple disciplines will help to reveal differences of opin-
ion, will provide the team with access to a variety of evidence and analytic
methods, and may provide a more robust critique of methods, findings, and con-
clusions. The participation of multiple public agencies—such as health, plan-
ning, and transportation agencies—not only will contribute expertise but may
ensure that the process addresses questions pertinent to the decision at hand and
thus increase the likelihood that the recommendations are actionable and will be
adopted. Furthermore, conducting HIA as a multidisciplinary practice can assist
in developing ownership and commitment for health goals among multiple insti-
tutional and disciplinary sectors. The committee nevertheless recognizes that it
can be challenging to conduct multidisciplinary analysis or to manage the par-
ticipation of multiple agencies or participants.
In selecting evidence and evaluating quality, practitioners should recog-
nize their own biases and the biases of decision-makers, project proponents, or
HIA sponsors. Biases may affect the value attached to particular types of evi-
dence. For example, evidence from consultation, which can be more readily
dismissed as hearsay or anecdotal, may not be accorded as much weight as the

quantitative modeling of environmental exposure or economic effects (Ozonoff

1994). Other biases related to conflicts of interest are discussed later in this
chapter.
Evaluate Evidence Quality
HIA practitioners should select the strongest evidence and analytic meth-
ods that are available for a particular decision context. For transparency, it is
equally important to state the rationale for choosing particular evidence or
methods when alternatives are available. Key factors that should be considered
in determining whether to use a given study or dataset include the relationship
between study end points and the issues evaluated in the HIA, the quality of the
data and their statistical power, the adequate assessment of factors that could
impede causal inference (that is, the internal validity of an empirical study)
(Susser 1986; Rothman and Greenland 1998; Weed 2005), and the applicability
of the evidence to the target population (that is, external validity). The quality of
evidence used in HIA may also be assessed according to the core standards of
the discipline in which the data originate; for example, epidemiologic studies
should generally be evaluated according to quality standards for epidemiologic
studies with attention to such issues as the potential for bias and confounding.
There are no uniform standards for evaluating all potential evidence that
might be used in HIA given the diversity of applications and of the evidence
base. However, many of Bradford Hill’s (Hill 1965) causal criteria—such as
strength of association, consistency of evidence among studies and data sources,
coherence with known facts of the exposure and disease, and analogy to similar
situations—could be applied to HIA when evaluating the likelihood of health
effects. Other criteria could be developed to extrapolate findings on study popu-
lations to the target populations for specific decisions. And criteria could be de-
veloped in ways that are specific to the needs of different policy contexts.
Setting any uniform evidence standards carries some risk of limiting the
scope of health effects and pathways assessed in HIA. In health risk assessment,
even with assumptions and acceptance of uncertainty, evidence requirements in
practice have constrained analysis to a limited set of exposures and outcomes
(NRC 2009). Even if HIA practice evolves standardized approaches for the
analysis of particular decisions, determinants, or health effects, there will be a
need for flexibility to address new and emerging issues.
Characterize and Manage Uncertainty
Uncertainty will always be present, and impact assessments—including

HIAs—should characterize and manage the uncertainty to the extent possible
and practicable that is inherent in the analyses and decisions. Although uncer-
tainty should not be ignored in HIA, it should also not paralyze the decision
process. Furthermore, there may be situations in which the magnitude of uncer-

tainty is large enough to make selection among competing alternatives challeng-

ing, but the potential impact may be important enough to justify intervention in
the face of that uncertainty.
Managing uncertainty in HIA can include planning how the analysis will
address uncertainties and establishing procedures to characterize or reduce key
uncertainties. Uncertainty in the analysis of health effects can be characterized
in a variety of ways, ranging from qualitative descriptions to quantitative analy-
sis. Quantitative analyses of uncertainty are common in related fields, such as
health risk assessment, and are relevant if the key health effects are quantified in
the HIA. Distributions of estimates based on various assumptions have been
presented in HIA (Schram-Bijkerk et al. 2009), but it typically includes only a
subset of assumptions for which distributions can be readily quantified and
omits some major sources of uncertainty for which quantification is impractical.
More generally, although formal propagation and quantification of uncertainty
can be helpful in elucidating the influence of key assumptions, they contribute to
a lack of methodologic transparency for many stakeholders and raise potential
issues with timeliness. At a minimum, uncertainties in assumptions used to sup-
port health-effect characterization should be described qualitatively. In other
words, HIA practitioners should evaluate and document the uncertainty of their
conclusions by describing the evidence on which their conclusions are based and
by identifying any limitations, gaps, or weaknesses in the assumptions. That
exercise should go beyond parametric uncertainty described in individual studies
to consider broader questions, such as whether a measure of exposure used in
HIA was a reliable proxy for personal exposure or whether an exposure-
response function extracted from the literature can be generalized to the popula-
tion of interest.
Similar issues have been confronted in the domain of health risk assess-
ment. The National Research Council report Science and Decisions: Advancing
Risk Assessment (NRC 2009) concluded that the plans for uncertainty analysis
should be discussed during the scoping process to ensure that the information
generated meets the needs of decision-makers and to avoid unnecessarily com-
plex (and untimely) uncertainty analyses. For example, if a mitigation or alterna-
tive is readily available and affordable for managing a health impact of concern
and has greater benefits than other alternatives, a formal treatment of uncertainty
may be unnecessary. Planning of how uncertainty will be evaluated and man-
aged—including quantitative and qualitative elements—should be a component
of the scoping process of HIA (see Chapter 3). The plan should consider how
stakeholders may wish to see uncertainty information presented, including the
method of presentation and the emphasis on distributions vs expected values vs
upper or lower bound values for aspects that can be quantified. Various ap-
proaches for characterizing the sophistication of uncertainty analysis (Pate-
Cornell 1996; IPCS 2006) could be adapted for HIA, as could previously rec-
ommended strategies for addressing and communicating uncertainty in complex
multifactorial models (NRC 2007) and in cost-effectiveness analysis (Briggs
2000; Claxton 2008).

As suggested, characterization of uncertainty will often need to go beyond

quantitative methods to include other forms of information. Using a deliberative
group process to arrive at judgments is a nonquantitative way to manage uncer-
tainty and to moderate the effects of individual and organizational values and
biases. HIA conducted as a deliberative group process that involves open discus-
sion and debate among the stakeholders may also be useful in generating judg-
ments that will be widely accepted. The National Institutes of Health uses a de-
liberative process to achieve consensus on many clinical issues in medicine
(NIH 2011); this approach may have value in managing uncertainties in HIA.
As the practice of HIA evolves, there may be uncertainties and data limita-
tions that call for a set of practical assumptions to avoid subjective or ad hoc
variations in analyses. In the practice of health risk assessment, default science-
policy assumptions are used to allow the analysis to proceed with incomplete
information (NRC 1983). For example, carcinogens whose mode of action is
unknown are generally assumed to have linear dose-response functions at low
doses, whereas nonlinear dose-response functions are assumed for noncancer
health effects in the absence of specific evidence about mode of action or
chemical pharmacodynamics. Similarly, when exposure or dose information is
lacking, numerous default assumptions are used to capture breathing rates,
drinking-water consumption, and various other behaviors or activities. In each
case, there is inadequate information on the specific pollutants and settings of
interest, but the analysis proceeds with assumptions derived from a combination
of evidence from analogous situations and science-policy judgments. Although
the variety of applications of HIA makes specific default science-policy assump-
tions difficult to formalize, the concept can be used to provide more transpar-
ency and interpretability. Over time, for policy contexts in which numerous
HIAs are conducted, default science-policy assumptions could be generated and
could facilitate comparability among HIAs. Regardless, HIA practitioners
should explicitly describe where key judgments or assumptions were made,
whether or not uncertainty can be formally characterized, and what implications
the assumptions have on the HIA recommendations. In that way, the ultimate
choice among competing options can be made by decision-makers given their
preferences regarding action in the face of uncertainty.
BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION
Some decision-makers and HIA users expect HIA to provide quantitative

estimates of health effects. Quantitative estimates of health effects have a num-
ber of desirable properties: they provide an indication of the magnitude of health
effects, they can be easily compared with existing numerical criteria or thresh-
olds that define the significance of particular effects, they allow one to make
more direct comparisons among alternatives, and they provide inputs for eco-
nomic valuation (see section “Assigning Monetary Values to Health Conse-
quences” below). They can be produced when there has been sufficient empiri-

cal research on relationships between particular determinants and health out-

comes. Accordingly, quantification is most feasible if a causal relationship can
be inferred and if there is an externally valid effect measure or a defined expo-
sure-response relationship (Hertz-Picciotto 1995; Fehr 1999; Mindell et al.
2001; O’Connell and Hurley 2009; Bhatia and Seto 2011). If information is
lacking or uncertain, quantification may still be possible with the use of assump-
tions and inferences based on information drawn from analogous situations. In
other situations, such as when assumptions are not defensible, quantitative esti-
mates should not be advanced.
HIAs have applied quantitative techniques to decisions to estimate health
effects related to expected changes in infectious-disease risks, traffic hazards,
environmental pollutants, housing conditions, and tobacco and alcohol con-
sumption (see Box 3-4; Veerman et al. 2005; O’Connell and Hurley 2009;
Bhatia and Seto 2011). For example, quantitative impact-assessment methods
have been used to estimate human health externalities associated with different
fuels in Europe; the analysis was used to inform member states about the im-
pacts of various fuels for electricity (such as nuclear fuel, coal, and natural gas)
and was considered in numerous policy analyses, including strategies for inter-
nalizing external costs and development of sustainable-transport policies
(O’Connell and Hurley 2009). Noise exposures and particulate-matter concen-
trations were modeled and associated with sleep disturbance and premature mor-
tality, respectively, in local-scale assessments of residential development in San
Francisco and waterfront development in Oakland; the assessments used quanti-
tative exposure-response functions from the epidemiologic literature (Bhatia and
Seto 2011). The effects of rezoning in San Francisco on pedestrian injuries were
modeled on the basis of multivariate regression models derived from geocoded
accident data and site characteristics, and changes in body-mass index and acci-
dent risks associated with increased walking of children to school in Sacramento
were estimated by using data derived from epidemiologic investigations (Bhatia
and Seto 2011).
Regardless of the advantages, relying exclusively on quantitative estima-
tion in HIA presents some drawbacks. First, quantification has high information
requirements. Given the breadth of health effects potentially considered in HIA,
the sparse data available to support quantitative approaches, and the variability
in practitioner capacity, it would be challenging if not impossible to expect all
HIAs to predict all potentially important health effects quantitatively. Thus, an
HIA that presents only quantifiable results would present only a partial account-
ing of health effects if not all important effects are amenable to quantification
(Veerman et al. 2005; O’Connell and Hurley 2009). Second, because quantifica-
tion can be resource-intensive, it may require more time than allowed for the
evaluation of a policy, plan, program, or project. Third, a quantitative approach
has implications for communicating the process and results to a wider audience
because the methods are typically highly technical and include assumptions that
may be difficult to communicate outside the technical team. Quantitative esti-
mates may create an unwarranted impression of objectivity, precision, and im-

portance and lead a reader to place importance or credence in quantified results

even if assumptions and measures used in the analysis are based on subjective
choices (O’Connell and Hurley 2009). Stakeholders, including lay audiences,
may lose trust in the process, especially if they suspect that assumptions in cal-
culations are influenced by the biases of those conducting or sponsoring the as-
sessments (Ozonoff 1994; NRC 2009; O’Connell and Hurley 2009).
Overall, quantitative estimates of health effects have value and should be
provided when the data and resources allow and when they are responsive to
decision-makers’ and stakeholders’ information needs. This statement, however,
should not imply exclusion of health effects from the analysis for which causal
linkages have been made but quantification is impractical. Part of the scoping
phase of HIA discussed in Chapter 3 should involve explicit consideration of
which exposures and outcomes, if any, would be amenable to quantification and
whether such analysis is feasible within the decision timeframe. To manage
some of the challenges related to communication outlined above, the technical
procedures and assumptions in quantitative analysis should be articulated clearly
and explicitly. Approaches to characterize quantitative or technical information
and communicate it to decision-makers have been described in detail elsewhere
(see, for example, NRC 1989, 1996).
CHARACTERIZING MULTIPLE HEALTH EFFECTS
An HIA analyzes and reports findings on multiple health effects, so pro-

viding a simple conclusion is challenging. For example, an HIA conducted on a
decision of whether to build a new rail line might evaluate its effects on sleep,
asthma symptoms, and traffic injuries. In most cases, those health effects will be
described with different units and measures and thus cannot be summarized by
using the same unit of measurement; that is, it is not possible simply to add find-
ings expressed in different health metrics. An important challenge is to synthe-
size and present results on dissimilar health effects in a manner that is intelligi-
ble and useful to stakeholders and decision-makers.
The most common approach in HIA is to describe and characterize each
effect separately (see Chapter 3) and allow users to make judgments about the
cumulative nature of the effects. The committee endorses that approach even if a
summary measure of effects is used. Generally, decision-makers must balance
multiple desirable and adverse effects related to a decision and will need to
“weight” or assign values to them on the basis of institutional rules, constituent
preferences, or some other approach. Keeping effects separate and assigning
values allow decision-makers to consider tradeoffs among health and nonhealth
effects clearly. As described in Improving Risk Communication, “reducing dif-
ferent kinds of hazard to a common metric (such as number of fatalities per
year) and presenting comparisons only on that metric have great potential to
produce misunderstanding and conflict and to engender mistrust of expertise”
(NRC 1989, p. 52). The committee emphasizes the importance of characterizing

adverse and beneficial effects separately in considering health disparities that

could result from a decision; the distributional effects could be hidden or disap-
pear if all effects are combined into one measure.2
As indicated above, an alternative way to present findings is to use a
summary measure to translate estimated effects on disparate health end points
into a single comparable unit, such as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)
(Hammit 2002), disability-adjusted life years, and healthy-years equivalent.
Such health utility measures allow for disparate health outcomes to be weighted
and combined, and they can include outcomes that are important for public
health but are often omitted or underemphasized in health risk assessments (for
example, mental illness). The health utility measures, however, bring assump-
tions that need to be recognized; for example, QALYs focus on years of remain-
ing life expectancy and thus place greater weight on the life and well-being of a
child than that of an elderly person. The committee recommends the considera-
tion and application of summary measures in contexts where quantification is
possible and the outcomes are amenable to assignment of quality weights or
disability weights. However, as stated above, each health outcome should also
be individually reported, and multiple summary measures should be used, when
it is practical, to determine whether decisions are robust to the weighting scheme
and to societal preferences among outcomes and populations.
ASSIGNING MONETARY VALUES TO HEALTH CONSEQUENCES
The health consequences of a decision can be characterized according to

their economic or monetary valuation. Although monetary effects clearly are not
health effects themselves, many decision-makers and stakeholders may give
substantial consideration to the economic value of effects, and economic valua-
tion of health effects can facilitate comparison with the costs and benefits of
competing alternatives (Brodin and Hodge 2008).
Economic valuation has several constraints and is not appropriate in all
circumstances. First, the wide array of end points may not be amenable to mone-
tary valuation. Second, monetary valuation of health outcomes has implicit and
explicit weighting of outcomes and populations that may or may not reflect the
values and priorities of decision-makers. For example, willingness to pay will
tend to be greater among populations that have greater wealth and will tend to be
lower among those who are facing competing risks (Hammitt 2002). Third,
some populations may bear a disproportionate share of the health costs of a de-
cision, and others a disproportionate share of the health gain. Those distribu-
tional effects can be hidden in cost-benefit analysis conducted at a societal level
2
The committee notes that distributional effects can be evaluated descriptively or
quantitatively, and available statistical techniques enable relationships among impact
inequalities and socioeconomic or demographic factors to be examined quantitatively
(Kakwani et al. 1997; Mitchell 2005).

but would be potentially valuable information for those who incur the costs and
for those who receive the benefits. Fourth, monetary valuation of health out-
comes can pose a substantial communication challenge for affected parties and
other stakeholders and may distract from the findings of an HIA. In spite of
those caveats, monetary valuation of health outcomes may be a useful approach
in some decision contexts, such as those in which alternative decision choices
might require implementing economically costly mitigations.
If economic analysis is conducted as part of HIA, it is important to main-
tain the distinction between HIA, which provides judgments of health effects,
and cost-benefit analysis, which provides a more comprehensive analysis of all
economic benefits and costs of a decision. Economic valuation of health effects
is common in existing cost-benefit analyses of federal regulations; however,
HIA should not be characterized as or confused with cost-benefit analysis.
VALUING AND ENABLING STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION
Chapter 3 emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement and par-

ticipation in HIA and echoes the guidance provided repeatedly in the context of
environmental risk assessment and risk management (PCCRARM 1997; NRC
2009). Individuals and organizations that are not part of the technical assessment
team have the potential to make valuable contributions at each stage of the HIA
process. Information gained through stakeholder involvement helps to illuminate
important issues and focus the scope of an HIA on the most important or con-
tested issues (Corburn and Bhatia 2007; Farhang et al. 2008; Corburn 2009). It
can improve the quality and specificity of an analysis by, for example, highlight-
ing local living conditions, prevalent health issues, and potential effects that
might not be visible to practitioners from outside the community (Elliot and
Williams 2004; Parry and Kemm 2005). Stakeholder involvement contributes to
a more democratic planning or decision-making process by providing a struc-
tured and effective way for knowledge to be exchanged among those involved in
planning and designing a proposal, those responsible for a decision, and those
likely to be affected by the decision. It also helps to ensure that various stake-
holder concerns receive adequate attention and that HIA recommendations are
realistic and practicable.
The importance of including different perspectives and worldviews is
highlighted by the experience of indigenous people whose perspectives and
ways of thinking have often challenged knowledge used in, values underpinning,
and processes for decision-making. The environment is of paramount impor-
tance to indigenous communities because many rely heavily on the land and
natural resources for their subsistence, including their socioeconomic, cultural,
spiritual, and physical survival (Kwiatkowski et al. 2009). For many indigenous
groups, the “term environment does not distinguish between humanity and eve-
rything else; humans are part of the environment as much as the fish, wildlife,
air, and trees” are (Kwiatkowski 2011, p. 447). Furthermore, the timeframe for

EIA is typically shorter than that used when elders assess issues that face their
communities (Williams 2010). For example, the constitution of the Iroquois
Nations stipulates a period of seven generations over which to consider implica-
tions of any actions (Murphy 2001; Haudenosaunee Confederacy 2010). The
knowledge and worldviews of indigenous people provide important insights that
would not be known to people outside the community and illustrate why it is so
important to provide opportunities for local input and influence and not to as-
sume that all groups have a similar perspective.
Ensuring that stakeholders, including the public, are able to participate ef-
fectively in HIA is described in Chapter 3 as an essential element of practice
(WHO 1999; Parry and Kemm 2005; IFC 2006; Quigley et al. 2006; Fredsgaard
et al. 2009; Bhatia et al. 2010). But how or indeed whether practitioners enable
stakeholders to participate in HIA varies widely (Kearney 2004; Mindell et al.
2004; Mahoney et al. 2007; Dannenberg et al. 2008). The variation may be at-
tributable to the time and resources available for the HIA, to how high a priority
HIA practitioners or sponsors give to participation, to a concern that participa-
tion may interfere with or impede progress toward the sponsors’ objectives, or to
differences in the type and scale of the decision to which the HIA is to be ap-
plied (for example, local vs national level). However, it must be recognized that
achieving representative participation is challenging, requires experience and
particular skills, and may take different forms.
The decision context and the objectives of an HIA will influence who
should be engaged, the challenges and opportunities for engaging key stake-
holders, and the final selection of specific approaches to engage various stake-
holders. For example, project-related decisions that will have direct and imme-
diate implications for local neighborhoods should engage stakeholders from
those communities. In contrast, national legislative decisions are more likely to
involve representatives of interest-based or constituency-based organizations or
possibly elected officials of constituencies that will be affected by legislation.
Going beyond broad representative participation may not be necessary or feasi-
ble for an HIA of a national policy.
Techniques for stakeholder engagement and involvement are many and
varied and can be chosen to suit a specific decision but need to address the bar-
riers and challenges identified for each stakeholder group. Although open com-
munity meetings are likely to lend themselves to projects at a local level, other
techniques (such as focus groups) can be adapted for any level by ensuring that
they include key stakeholder communities and organizations that represent the
groups most likely to be affected. Other approaches include interactive Web-
based communications that facilitate effective exchanges among practitioners,
sponsors, stakeholders, and the public and provide opportunities for stakeholders
to review and comment on scope, data sources, findings, and recommendations
(UNECE/REC 2007). Stakeholder engagement strategies that solicit and re-
spond to comments on HIA reports only after they have been completed are re-
stricted in their ability to take into account stakeholder concerns in the analysis
and are typically viewed as reactive by stakeholders and the public. Whenever it

is possible, strategies for stakeholder participation should extend beyond that

minimal standard.
Formal oversight or advisory groups can be effective for continuing in-
volvement, such as steering committees that are comprised of practitioners and
stakeholders and provide oversight or direction and technical advisory commit-
tees that extend the expertise or range of disciplines brought to the HIA (Cor-
burn and Bhatia 2007; Farhang et al. 2008). Formal collaboration agreements
can also be used to define the roles and expectations of practitioners and stake-
holders. In creating and working with groups, efforts must be made to ensure
that members are representative, that differences in technical knowledge or
power do not exclude members from full participation, and that disagreements
among members are managed effectively. Conducting an HIA on local and re-
gional policies, programs, or projects with the assistance of local community-
based organizations that have deep local knowledge and networks is an effective
way to achieve involvement of community members that have historically been
excluded from decision-making (Wier et al. 2009).
Effective stakeholder participation potentially faces a number of chal-
lenges; as noted earlier, these are likely to depend on the scale of the decision
for which HIA is being conducted. Participatory processes can favor those who
have more resources and expertise and exclude local community or lay stake-
holders. For example, groups that have fewer social and economic resources
may be the least likely to participate. An equitable HIA process depends on
strong efforts to identify and minimize barriers to participation and to ensure
adequate representation for those unable to participate directly, for example,
through elected officials in the case of national decisions. For HIAs of local and
regional decisions, factors that can inhibit or prevent participation by individuals
or groups that may be affected by the decisions vary—for example, structural
issues, such as limited collective organization or lack of trust in public proc-
esses; poor access to elected decision-makers; and practical considerations, such
as language or literacy barriers and the requirement to manage competing life
needs. Similarly, for HIAs of national decisions (in which stakeholders may
include constituency or interest groups or elected officials), people who are eco-
nomically, socially, or linguistically marginalized may encounter particular chal-
lenges to full participation or representation. Efforts to address the challenges
can include various strategies and again depend on the scale of the decision. For
local or regional decisions, engagement of diverse stakeholders may include
hosting meetings at venues in the community, providing translation and child
care, scheduling interactions around work demands and important cultural
events, and identification of formal and informal leaders in the community for
continuing participation. For national decisions, efforts to ensure engagement of
a broad array of stakeholders may include identification of regional or national
interest groups that represent those likely to be affected by the decision and
elected representatives from districts or regions likely to be affected by a deci-
sion. External facilitation of stakeholder engagement and involvement may be
an effective option in some cases.

THE BENEFITS OF A PEER-REVIEW PROCESS

FOR HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
An important quality-control mechanism in the research process is peer

review of the research plan or strategy and of the report that describes the analy-
sis and results. Independent peer review provides a measure of credibility and
legitimacy of findings and is commonly used in applied scientific disciplines to
monitor practitioner conformity with established practices. HIA is different from
primary scientific research in that it involves the application and interpretation
of evidence in a particular decision context. Although premises underlying HIA
judgments are often based on peer-reviewed evidence, several additional aspects
of the HIA process might benefit from peer review.
HIA involves the selective identification of issues and the selective use of
evidence. Peer review might identify overlooked issues or indicate opportunities
to improve data or methods. Judgments about health effects are inferences based
on evidence and observations that use reasoning and assumptions. Many of the
procedural aspects of HIA—such as selection of evidence and transparency in
the reporting stage of HIA—are instrumental in the acceptability and utility of
findings in the decision process and may benefit from review by HIA experts
who are independent of the process. Thus, peer review might increase the le-
gitimacy of conclusions and their acceptance and utility in the decision-making
process.
Regardless of the potential benefits, an accepted peer-review process for
HIA would need to overcome several challenges. There are many stages at
which peer review could theoretically be applied, and the multidisciplinary na-
ture of HIA requires varied expertise and raises the issue of which people or
teams would be best suited to conduct such a review. The involvement of teams
of reviewers at multiple steps in the process could substantially increase the time
and effort required to complete an HIA and could therefore make it less practical
for decisions that need to be made in the short-term and for HIA teams with few
resources. Peer review would also require agreed-on criteria, and at present there
are no uniformly accepted criteria with which to judge the quality of an HIA.
Furthermore, given the need for a flexible and adaptive tool that is applicable to
an array of decision contexts, flexibility of quality criteria may be needed. In
addition, peer review would need to be distinguished from public comment, and
a process would need to be created to demonstrate responsiveness to peer-
review comments.
Currently, peer review appears to be undertaken only intermittently, and
the committee notes that the benefits of peer review need to be weighed care-
fully against the risk of delays that would render the HIA less relevant to the
decision that it is intended to inform and the added costs and time that could
restrict the use of HIA in some cases. Given the potential benefits, however, a
formal peer-review process could be used at least in targeted large-scale, high-
profile cases in which the benefits of added scrutiny and rigor would outweigh
the disadvantages of added delay and process. In other cases, practitioners could

consider a less structured process. For example, practitioners could request in-
formally that colleagues review their HIAs or that they review particularly chal-
lenging, complex, or controversial aspects of their findings. It is common for
HIA practitioners to get advice from other practitioners during the course of an
HIA, and some implement technical advisory committees. Those approaches
might achieve some of the objectives of an independent formal peer review.
Development of accepted standards, databases, models, and default assumptions
in the field would enable HIAs to be peer-reviewed with a consistent approach
(Fredsgaard et al. 2009; Bhatia et al. 2009, 2010).
MINIMIZING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST OF SPONSORS AND

PRACTITIONERS OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Impact assessments, including HIA, are conducted on decision proposals

that are often contested among polarized and disparate interests and stake-
holders. Regulatory assessment practices have been criticized as selectively rep-
resenting interests, particularly those of development-project proponents. Given
the decision-driven nature of HIA, even when there are substantial resources and
high-quality data, results of HIA may still be contested and be subject to accusa-
tions of bias (Milner et al. 2003). Ensuring that the process by which HIA is
conducted and the conclusions and recommendations that are produced at the
end of the process are impartial, credible, and scientifically valid is paramount to
the effectiveness of the practice (Veerman et al. 2006). To the extent feasible,
those who conduct the assessment should strive to avoid real and perceived con-
flicts of interests.
The source of HIA funding is a common challenge to objectivity in HIA.
Bias toward a funder’s interests is a well-recognized problem in many other
forms of analysis and assessment. For example, Lexchin et al. (2003) found that
results were more likely to favor pharmaceutical companies when they spon-
sored studies than when others sponsored them. In the practice of EIA, in which
assessments of economic-development proposals are commonly funded and
conducted by development proponents, assessors may feel substantial pressure
to hide or minimize adverse effects of the proposals or to emphasize favorable
effects (Morgan 1998). That bias can be reflected in issues and alternatives
evaluated, methods used, assumptions made, results presented, and mitigations
offered. An HIA funded by a development proponent may be similarly vulner-
able to influence and may lead to a process that is more likely to find a result
consistent with the interests of the sponsor.
Private commercial interests are not the only entities that may exert influ-
ence on HIA via funding or sponsorship. Private grant-makers (such as philan-
thropies) currently provide a substantial share of the funding for HIA that is
conducted voluntarily in the United States. Philanthropies may influence the
process or findings of HIA in several ways, for example, by directing HIA fund-
ing to assess specific health issues (such as air pollution or obesity), and this

could potentially bias the scope of the assessment and the associated results.
Mission-driven grant-makers may have strong expectations that HIA will pro-
duce substantive change in the issues and interests that they champion, or they
may wish to see clear evidence that the HIA influenced a decision.
Government agencies sponsoring HIAs may also have interests that exert
influence on HIA practices or conclusions. For example, government agencies
may be less welcoming of results that potentially raise criticisms of their actions,
identify their oversights, or challenge their positions. Like development-project
proponents, public agencies may have a preferred decision outcome and may be
interested in ensuring that HIA reflects favorably on that alternative. Such con-
flicts may be heightened if the agency conducting the HIA is also the responsi-
ble decision-maker.
In some cases, stakeholders or practitioners may decide to champion,
sponsor, or conduct an HIA because of a strong interest in a specific decision
outcome. They may seek to use HIA as a means to support or advocate for a
particular policy outcome (Harris-Roxas and Harris 2011). In such cases, there
may be a substantial risk of introducing bias into the HIA process.
The committee emphasizes that a lack of trust by any stakeholders in the
HIA practitioner can undermine the legitimacy and influence of HIA. Therefore,
it is important to guard against and mitigate the conflicts of interest described
above. It may be useful for future practice guidance to establish a clear line be-
tween a practitioner’s role in conducting HIA and later efforts toward advocacy
of particular decision outcomes.3 Although public entities may be somewhat less
vulnerable to influence because of public funding sources, oversight mecha-
nisms, and requirements for transparency, they are not immune to influence.
Public-health agencies that have the necessary experience and expertise and the
confidence of stakeholders may be in good positions to conduct or coordinate
HIA given their mandate to protect public health. Other mechanisms to manage
or mitigate influence may include the eventual creation of a dedicated public
funding source to conduct HIA and a process of independent peer review of HIA
as discussed above.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS: INFORMATION

MAY NOT CHANGE DECISIONS
HIA clearly is intended to inform decisions, but information alone does

not necessarily change decisions. The committee recognizes that the underlying
motivation of HIA is to make policy and decisions that are more cognizant of
and aligned with the interests of public health. Informing decision-makers can
certainly influence attitudes and preferences and lead to more responsive health-
3
The committee distinguishes between advocacy (that is, trying to influence the deci-
sion outcome) and explaining or educating decision-makers on the findings and recom-
mendations made in an HIA.

supporting actions, but it is not reasonable to base the effectiveness of HIA on

whether it changes decisions in which health is only one of many considerations
and over which the HIA team lacks decision-making authority. Furthermore,
support and legitimacy of the practice may be compromised if an HIA is con-
ducted explicitly as a mechanism for decision advocacy.
It is reasonable to hope that identifying valid information about the health-
related harms or benefits of a decision will motivate decision-makers to take
protective actions.4 However, generating high-quality health information and
effectively communicating it does not ensure that the information is given high
priority in the decision-making process or triggers action. HIA is not designed or
practiced as a mechanism to regulate decision-making directly (that is, to require
responsive actions if impacts exceed criteria). Although effective communica-
tion can raise awareness of and attention to health concerns, improved knowl-
edge alone cannot necessarily change the ideology, interests, and attitudes of
decision-makers. Health is typically one of many objectives under consideration
in a given policy question, and decision-makers and other stakeholders are rea-
sonably influenced by factors and tradeoffs beyond the quality or findings of an
HIA.
Although HIA does not guarantee particular decision outcomes, providing
publicly available information on health effects clearly is a mechanism of influ-
ence. Thomas Jefferson famously stated that “information is the currency of
democracy.” In the case of EIA under NEPA, the purpose of the process was to
give environmental consequences due consideration (Yost 2003). Although the
courts observed that NEPA provides protection only from the harm of unin-
formed decision-making, not from adverse environmental consequences them-
selves, informing decisions has substantial power. Institutional rules for EIA
have opened decision-making to public scrutiny, raised the profile of environ-
mental considerations, and altered the norms and practices of public and private
organizations in a way that is more protective of the environment (Canter and
Clark 1997; Cashmore et al. 2007).
Given that HIA practitioners are not typically in decision-making posi-
tions, effective and broad communication of findings is essential to the informa-
tional objectives and to later influence on decision-making. Communication of
findings may be optimal when there is an opportunity for assessors to have dis-
cussion with decision-makers and stakeholders. Effective dissemination may
require educating decision-makers about the public-health evidence underlying
conclusions and may require consideration of and response to criticisms about
the findings or about the efficacy or feasibility of recommendations. Many oth-
ers, apart from practitioners, may be in strong positions to communicate findings
of HIA and their importance in the decision-making process. The accounting of
health effects by HIA should allow the public and stakeholders to use informa-
4
The committee notes that revisions might be made in a proposal or its alternatives in
anticipation of an HIA being conducted; such changes might not ultimately be considered
to be a result of the HIA but might not have occurred if the HIA were not planned.

tion in the political process to advance health interests. The political use of HIA
evidence—like other types of information disclosed to the public—should be
viewed as a normal mechanism of its influence on decisions.
ADVANCING REQUIREMENTS FOR HEALTH ANALYSIS

IN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
This chapter has thus far discussed HIA as it is practiced outside the con-
text of EIA. NEPA and some SEPAs explicitly require the identification and
analysis of health effects when EIA is conducted, and there are various views on
how HIA might be related to or support health-effects analysis in the EIA proc-
ess (see Appendixes A and F for further discussion). Although the scope of
health-effects analysis has been limited in U.S. EIA practice, some argue that
greater use should be made of NEPA and related state laws as a mechanism for
health-informed policy-making given that it has the same substantive ends as
HIA (Bhatia and Wernham 2008; Wernham 2009; Morgan 2011). Others, how-
ever, contend that EIA has become too rigid a practice to accommodate the at-
tention and resources needed for conducting a comprehensive analysis of health
effects (Cole et al. 2004) and that attention should be focused on the independ-
ent practice of HIA.
The committee is keenly aware of the time and resources that NEPA com-
pliance can entail. However, assessment of direct, indirect, and cumulative
health effects in EIA under NEPA and many SEPAs is a matter of law, not dis-
cretion, when it is likely to add important information that is relevant to deci-
sion-making (see Appendix A for further discussion). Therefore, when legal
requirements call for an integrated analysis of health effects in the EIA process,
this analysis should be conducted in observance of the same procedures and
standards as for any other environmental or social effects being considered. In
the case of health, those procedures would arguably mirror the general steps of
HIA as described in Chapter 3 and would include a description of the baseline
health status of the population; an analysis of the direct, indirect, and cumulative
health consequences of the proposed action and alternatives; and a consideration
of potential mitigation measures to address the health concerns identified by the
analysis. If adequately conducted, the steps would be consistent with and might
be considered equivalent to conducting an HIA.
To date, however, despite the requirements for the analysis of health ef-
fects in EIA, the consideration of health effects in EIA practice has been limited,
and public-health experts have rarely been involved in the EIA process (Davies
and Sadler 1997; Steinemann 2000; Hilding-Rydevik et al. 2006). The limited
practice may partly reflect that historically, NEPA practice has been shaped
primarily by pressure and litigation brought by environmental groups, and pub-
lic-health advocates have only rarely demanded health-effects analysis. The lim-
ited practice also may reflect the resource constraints facing many public-health
departments and more generally the lack of familiarity with EIA practice. Chal-

lenges to changing EIA practice to include more substantive health analysis in-
clude resistance on the part of agencies leading EIA to invest time and resources
in routine health analysis, lack of familiarity with or expertise in public health
on the part of agencies that commonly lead EIAs, and limited relationships with
local, state, and tribal health authorities or others that have the capacity to con-
duct public-health analyses (Cole et al. 2004; Hilding-Rydevik et al. 2006; Cor-
burn and Bhatia 2007; Bhatia and Wernham 2008). Because of those challenges,
some HIA practitioners have voiced concern that, in contrast with independent
HIA, integrating health into EIA might produce a narrow consideration of health
effects (Cole et al. 2004). Furthermore, it is possible that agencies responsible
for EIA may give less importance to health effects than to other environmental
concerns; consider only health effects that are quantifiable with traditional
methods, such as human health risk assessment; or allocate insufficient funding
for health-effects analysis. Those concerns are valid, but the committee notes
that the problem is not unique to the setting of integrated EIA. Currently, HIA
conducted independently of EIA has no mechanism to monitor or ensure the
adequacy of resources and breadth of analysis, and like EIA, the scope of HIA
has been limited by practitioner decisions and available resources (Dannenberg
et al. 2008).
Considering those important challenges, the committee concludes that im-
proving the integration of health into EIA under NEPA and related state laws is
needed and would serve the mission of public health and the goals of HIA. Fed-
eral agencies file thousands of EIA documents each year. Decision-making that
is subject to EIA requirements at the federal and state levels includes a wide
array of projects, programs, and policies that have broad importance for health.
Furthermore, health issues are among the most common concerns raised by af-
fected communities.
Agencies formally responsible for conducting EIAs and practitioners in
the field of public health have an interest in improving the consideration of
health in EIA. When health effects are relevant to a proposed action, agencies
responsible for conducting EIA should seek out appropriate public-health exper-
tise and should invite tribal, federal, state, or local health agencies to participate
as cooperating agencies (40 C.F.R Sections 1501.6, 15018.5). Adequate re-
sources should be accorded to health-effects analysis in EIA. Similarly, public-
health officials need to take a more active role in EIA by offering appropriate
information and expertise to aid the analysis.
Recent experience in the field has demonstrated that a greater considera-
tion of direct, indirect, and cumulative health effects can be accomplished in
EIA if the associations described are well supported by public-health theory and
evidence (Wernham 2009; Bhatia and Wernham 2008; Morgan 2011). The offi-
cial submission of findings by public-health agencies into the public record (for
example, via public comment on draft environmental documents) has triggered
comment and analysis by responsible agencies (Bhatia 2007). Interagency part-
nerships that have involved public health during an EIA have reduced skepti-
cism on the part of agencies unfamiliar with public health and HIA, have fos-

tered a broader shared understanding of potential health effects, and have led to
health-protective mitigations and alternatives to the proposals that were assessed
(Wernham 2007; Bhatia and Wernham 2008; Morgan 2011). In several cases
under both NEPA and the California Environmental Quality Act, the scope of
health effects and alternatives considered has been substantially augmented with
the financial resources and expertise needed to conduct related analyses. In other
cases, health-effects analyses have trigged substantive mitigations. There re-
main, however, substantial opportunities to improve the consideration and
analysis of health effects under NEPA and SEPAs. Conflicts and negotiation of
interests among environmental assessors and health professionals concerning
values, objectives, scope, and use of information should be expected in the
course of developing a stronger integrated practice (Morgan 2011).
Anecdotally, some concerns have been raised that broadening the scope of
health analysis in NEPA may increase the potential for litigation. The committee
finds little factual support for that view; indeed, only rarely has EIA litigation
been based on inadequacy of health analysis. Indeed, the failure to address po-
tentially important effects and substantive concerns is a leading reason for litiga-
tion under NEPA and may result in an order to the agency to address the omis-
sions; this could cause delays in projects. Given that there is increasing attention
to the relationship between public policies and health in the United States, the
failure to address potentially important health effects may leave agencies more
vulnerable to litigation; ensuring a comprehensive analysis of health in EIA may
be a good way for agencies to avoid such risks.
CONCLUSIONS
 Although there are many definitions of health, there is a growing con-

sensus that health at the individual and population levels is shaped by a combi-
nation of genetic, behavioral, social, economic, and environmental factors. It is
essential that those determinants be considered in defining the boundaries of
HIA.
 It is not necessary or appropriate to conduct HIA for all decisions at the
local, state, or federal levels; however, restricting the spectrum of HIA practice
to particular decision types, institutional sectors, decision scales (for example,
policy, program, or plan), or jurisdictional levels or to specific health issues is
not warranted. The use of HIA should be focused on applications in which there
is the greatest opportunity to protect or promote health and to raise awareness of
the health consequences of proposed decisions.
 The committee finds that three strategies should help to improve the va-
lidity of health-effects predictions made in the context of varied evidence: con-
sider diverse evidence sources by using expertise in multiple disciplines, assess
the quality of available evidence, and implement a strategy for assessing and
managing uncertainty.

 Quantitative estimates of health effects in HIA have a number of desir-

able properties, but it is impractical to expect quantitative estimates in all appli-
cations of HIA given the sparseness of quantitative data on associations between
many policy decisions and health.
 An HIA that analyzes multiple dissimilar health effects should describe
and characterize each effect separately and consider ways to provide aggregate
or summary measures of dissimilar effects.
 Although HIA is not a cost-benefit analysis, economic valuation of
health effects may be requested by decision-makers and should be considered
when relevant data are available. As with any HIA component, economic valua-
tion should be provided with a discussion of key assumptions and methodologic
limitations.
 The committee emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement
and participation in HIA. Information gained through stakeholder involvement
can help to focus the scope of the HIA and improve its quality and specificity by
highlighting local living conditions, prevalent health issues, and potential effects
that might not be visible to practitioners outside the community.
 A formal peer-review process for HIA could increase the acceptability
or utility of conclusions on health effects or related mitigations and should be
considered when the benefits of added scrutiny and rigor would outweigh the
disadvantages of added delay and process.
 To the extent feasible, practitioners conducting HIA should strive to
avoid real and perceived conflicts of interest. It may be useful for future practice
guidance to establish a clear line between the practitioner’s role in conducting
HIA and later advocacy of particular decision outcomes. A dedicated public
funding source and a process of independent peer review of HIA may help in
managing or mitigating conflicts of interest.
 HIA aims to influence attitudes and preferences and leads to actions
that support health, but HIA may not change decisions when health is only one
of many considerations. Conducting HIA as a mechanism for advocacy may
compromise support for and legitimacy of the practice.
 Improving the integration of health into EIA practice under NEPA and
related state laws would serve the mission of public health and the purpose of
HIA and EIA. Despite known challenges, agencies responsible for EIA and pub-
lic-health practitioners share responsibility for improving the consideration of
health effects in EIA practice. However, to ensure reasonable priority of health
issues under NEPA, public-health agencies should be afforded a substantive role
in the scoping and oversight of health-effects analysis in EIA, and health-effects
analysis must be afforded resources commensurate with the task.
 The committee concludes that any future policies, standards, or regula-
tions for HIA should include explicit criteria for identifying and screening can-
didate decisions and rules for providing oversight for the HIA process; such
criteria and rules would promote the utility, validity, and sustainability of HIA
practice.

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Structures and Policies for Promoting

The nation’s highest priorities for health, as articulated in the Healthy

People 2020 initiative, include increasing quality and longevity of a life and
eliminating health disparities between sexes, classes, races, and ethnic groups
(DHHS 2010). Poor health severely undermines a person’s quality of life and
places substantial economic burdens on individuals and on society at large.
Chapter 2 documents the direct and indirect associations between current health
problems and social, economic, and environmental conditions in the United
States. It also illustrates how decisions about policies, programs, projects, and
plans—especially those emanating from nonhealth sectors—contribute to condi-
tions that influence the public’s health. Thus, improving public health substan-
tially will require focused efforts to recognize and address the health implica-
tions of decisions made at all levels and in all sectors of government—that is, to
incorporate health into policy-making, planning, and decision-making.
Health impact assessment (HIA), an emerging practice in the United
States, is one approach for promoting health and disease-prevention objectives.
As described in Chapter 3, HIA aspires to assist policy-makers, decision-
makers, and the public in identifying health considerations and factoring them
into proposed policies, plans, programs, and projects that otherwise would not
have recognized or addressed important health risks or opportunities. It aims to
protect and promote public health and to reduce health disparities by informing
decision-making, and it offers substantial potential benefits to improve public
health. In contrast with its more extensive use internationally, HIA appears to be
underused in the United States. The committee identified several barriers to the
development and use of HIA in the United States:
 The context within which HIA is practiced poses a challenge. There are
few legal mandates for the use of HIA in the United States; as described in
Chapter 4, the decision-making contexts within which HIA must occur are di-
119

verse; and the minimal attention to health in public policy-making has not been
identified as a pressing issue on local, state, or national policy agendas.
 Societal awareness of the many determinants of health is limited. The
general public and people in a variety of nonhealth (and health) sectors often
have little understanding of the influence of all the social, cultural, political,
economic, and environmental determinants on health and therefore have little
awareness about the utility of HIA. As a result, there is little public demand for
the use of HIA in the United States.
 Another key challenge is related to the professional practice of HIA it-
self. Little education and training in HIA are available in the United States. The
current practice of HIA is inconsistent and nonstandardized. The quality of ana-
lytic methods used by HIA practitioners varies widely and there is not enough
synthesized evidence on health determinants that can be used by HIA practitio-
ners. In addition, the effectiveness of HIA and its effects on public-health out-
comes have not been evaluated sufficiently.
 Finally, there are few resources to support the practice of HIA.
In response to those barriers, the committee identified four core issues that
must be addressed to foster the judicious, deliberative, and rigorous use of HIA
in the United States:
 Structure and policies to support HIA.

 Promotion of education, training, and societal awareness of HIA.
 Increase in research and scholarship in HIA.
 Development of resources to support HIA.
STRUCTURE AND POLICIES TO SUPPORT

The continuing adoption and effectiveness of HIA in the United States are
predicated on the creation of an institutional framework that facilitates its use in
public decision-making at all levels of government (see Appendix A for interna-
tional examples of the use of HIA at various levels of government). Although
there are a number of ways for such a framework to emerge, two potential ways
to support HIA are greater and sustained interagency collaboration among gov-
ernment agencies at local, state, and federal levels and better implementation of
existing policies with the creation or strengthening of enabling legislation at
local, state, and federal levels.
Interagency Collaboration
It is difficult or impossible to conduct an HIA of policies, programs, and

projects of nonhealth public sectors—such as economic policies, job-training
programs, and infrastructure projects—without substantial interagency collabo-

Structures and Policies for Promoting Health Impact Assessment 121
ration among sectors and all levels of government. For example, if an HIA of a
proposed road expansion is led by a public-health agency, the HIA team will
need to work with the departments of public works, planning, and engineering to
understand the proposed project fully. Conversely, if the HIA is led by a non-
health agency, the HIA team will need input from a public-health agency on
relevant health data. In short, the practice of HIA depends on and benefits from
cross-agency collaboration. Such collaboration is also essential because of the
resource-constrained environment within which public-policy-makers and public
officials work.
Although the nature and extent of collaboration will depend on the level of
government and the particular decision context, the collaborative arrange-
ments—which may be manifested in joint task forces, councils, cabinets, new
departments, shared staff appointments, or some other suitable mechanism—are
most effective when they represent the widest possible group of professional
interests, such as departments of public health, planning, law, and economic
development.
There are a number of potential ways to promote interagency collabora-
tion. The committee notes several examples below.
 Federal agencies, such as the Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ)

and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), could establish
collaborative relationships—for example, through an interagency working group
or a task force—that would be explicitly charged with developing guidance for
integrating health concerns into the implementation of the National Environ-
mental Policy Act (NEPA). Existing regulations that provide a foundation for
such guidance are discussed in Appendix F.
 Individual executive-branch agencies could evaluate whether HIA is an
appropriate mechanism for incorporating health considerations into their plans
and proposals and for meeting standards conferred by their enabling legislation
and regulations concerning public health and well-being.
 The Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2009 set out objectives
for the member agencies of the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and
Public Health Council (2010). The council could consider how HIA might be
used to achieve those objectives, and it could also recommend use of HIA in the
National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy.
 Tribal health departments could become involved in NEPA-related de-
cisions made by federal agencies when it appears that decisions would be impor-
tant for tribal health or well-being. There are several opportunities for tribal par-
ticipation in the NEPA process. First, tribal members and government
representatives can submit formal comments. Second, tribal governments may
request direct “government-to-government” consultation with lead federal offi-
cials at any time during the NEPA process. Third, tribal governments may ask to
become “cooperating agencies” in the preparation of NEPA-related documents;

this role allows them to review, comment on, and contribute new information to
the analysis as it is being developed.
 Tribes could consider forming multiagency working groups to locate
appropriate opportunities to incorporate health into planning, policy, and pro-
grammatic decision-making.
 As in efforts at the federal level, state health departments and depart-
ments of the environment could establish interagency working groups charged
with integrating health concerns into decision-making processes at the state
level.
 State agencies—such as departments of the environment, agriculture,
education, and transportation—could invite their health departments to partici-
pate in coordinated planning and permitting activities for large projects and for
infrastructure or transportation improvement programs. This approach is proving
successful in at least one state (Wernham 2009; Health Impact Project 2010).
 Local public-health agencies—county and city health departments—
could partner with other government agencies, such as agencies of urban plan-
ning and economic development, in promoting health. HIA could be used as a
tool to engage the agencies. This practice has shown considerable promise in
several jurisdictions (Bhatia and Wernham 2008; Corburn 2009).
 Local public-health agencies could become more multidisciplinary by
deepening expertise in nonhealth sectors and could assist in building capacity in
other agencies. For example, public-health agencies might train planners and
other officials in the use of HIA.
 Given the sparse resources of local government agencies, innovative
revenue-generation options will need to be explored to support many of the
above activities. For example, health departments that are involved in formal
planning or permitting decisions could be funded by such mechanisms as per-
mitting fees.
Supportive Public Policies and Legislation
HIA can be advanced by fully implementing existing policies and legisla-

tion that support the use of HIA or through support of the creation of new ena-
bling legislation. The key policies that support the use of HIA in the United
States are NEPA and state environmental policy acts (SEPAs) (see Appendix A
for further discussion). Although the federal NEPA process and equivalent proc-
esses at the state level are important tools for advancing HIA, it is possible and
probably prudent for the public sector to enact additional policies and legislation
outside the context of NEPA and SEPAs to facilitate the use of HIA. Making
prescriptive recommendations on the nature of the new policies and legislation
is beyond the scope of this report, particularly given the wide variation in policy
contexts across the country. Instead, several avenues through which HIA may be
advanced are outlined below; some of which focus on reinvigorating and

strengthening the spirit of NEPA. The examples are by no means exhaustive;

they constitute only a sample of general approaches that could be used to further
the practice of HIA.
 Explicit guidance that demonstrates how health considerations can be

incorporated into NEPA could be developed jointly by agencies best suited to
the task of integrating health into the NEPA process and provided to federal
agencies. For example, CEQ in partnership with CDC and other appropriate
public-health and NEPA experts could develop and issue guidance to federal
agencies on explicitly incorporating health considerations into NEPA. The guid-
ance could also encourage lead federal agencies to solicit appropriate participa-
tion of local, state, tribal, or federal health officials as cooperating agencies in
the NEPA process.
 Without clear health goals, objectives, metrics or indicators, or targets,
it is difficult for federal agencies to gauge and monitor the extent to which
health and HIA are incorporated into policies. One possibility is for federal
agencies to develop such metrics and targets as part of their 5- and 10-year
plans. The metrics could be adopted from the Healthy People 2020 initiative,
which provides science-based 10-year objectives for measuring improvements in
health (DHHS 2010). Such an approach is consistent with the framework of
Healthy People 2020, which argues for a “health in all policies” approach.
 To overcome institutional barriers, it is important to identify means to
facilitate the explicit inclusion of health concerns in domestic policy-making at
all levels of government. One strategy for doing so could be the establishment of
a committee, council, or task force nested within existing policy-making bodies
at the federal level (such as the Domestic Policy Council) with analogues at the
state and local levels. To be successful, such an entity would need to have clear
points of coordination at all levels of government, identifiable liaisons, and a
clearly defined charge.
 The Government Accountability Office could review, synthesize,
evaluate, and publically disseminate information on HIAs of federal government
policies, projects, and programs.
 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could consider ways of ex-
panding their reviews of environmental impact statements to include assessment
of health consequences for low-income populations, racial minorities, and native
tribes (42 U.S.C. Section 7609 (1970)).
 Each policy sector—such as energy, housing, and transportation—
could consider including explicit objectives and performance measures in plan-
ning, funding, and policy-development activities that are aimed at protecting
human health. For example, the transportation sector could include planning and
design objectives that would result in reduction of human exposure to air pollu-
tion and prevention of injuries to pedestrians, bicyclists, and other users of
roads. The housing sector could include objectives and measures for reducing
segregation, crowding, and injury hazards.

 Tribal governments could consider enacting a tribal environmental pol-

icy act and include standards for the use of HIA when appropriate (Tulalip
Tribes 2000).
At the local government level, HIA may be useful as a tool for reviewing
the effects of plans and projects on the health of a community. Several examples
are noted below.
 HIA may be used to gauge the effect of comprehensive plans on the

health of a community, especially in cases in which health is not explicitly an
element of a local comprehensive plan.
 One purpose of zoning is to protect public health and well-being. HIA
is proving to be a useful tool for assessing the effects of proposed new or revised
zoning codes on public health.
 School districts could use HIAs to gauge the effects of various disci-
pline policies, exercise curricula, school-meal programs, or school-siting deci-
sions on children’s health. Health and wellness committees in school districts
can play a key role in initiating a conversation around HIAs.
PROMOTION OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN AND SOCIETAL

AWARENESS OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT
A few institutions of higher learning in the United States offer formal edu-
cation in HIA; for example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley offer courses that feature HIA. Other courses are
taught by practitioners in the field. For example, the San Francisco Department
of Public Health has taught an annual 4-day course for practitioners for the last
few years, and several other organizations—such as Human Impact Partners,
Design for Health, CDC, and the University of California, Los Angeles—have
offered training (usually for 1-3 days) and technical assistance.
Few professionals in the United States, however, are trained in the practice
of HIA. Current HIA practice in the United States is based largely on experien-
tial learning, that is, “learning by doing.” The present committee views high-
quality education and training as critical for the advancement of HIA in the
United States. The committee notes that advancement must occur in basic edu-
cation, continuing education, and formation of professional associations.
Basic Education in Health Impact Assessment
HIA is concerned with bringing health concerns into a decision-making

process that would otherwise fail to incorporate health. Therefore, HIA practi-
tioners will always work in interdisciplinary settings and with interdisciplinary
groups, and the education of future HIA professionals in academic settings must
embody a variety of relevant disciplines—health-related (such as public health

and medicine) and other (such as public policy, urban planning, public admini-
stration, and economics). The teaching must engage faculty and students in the
various disciplines. Accordingly, schools of public health and medicine, public
policy, urban planning, public administration, and economics should develop
curricula that enable studies to learn core HIA skills. The curriculum must ad-
here to the highest standards of academic rigor as demanded by the core disci-
plines in which HIA is taught.
Material, financial, human, and institutional resources are necessary from
inside and outside academe to facilitate inclusion of HIA in academic programs.
Potential agencies outside the academic setting that might support educational
programs in HIA are those whose mission is to promote health (such as the Na-
tional Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) and education in general
(such as the U.S. Department of Education).
Continuing Education of Professionals, Policy-Makers, and Society
In addition to introducing HIA into academic programs, the committee

views continuing education of HIA professionals, policy-makers, and society in
general as important for improving the quality of HIA practice in the country. It
is especially important to emphasize broad societal education in the many de-
terminants of health so that individuals and communities can make informed
decisions about their health and well-being and can participate fully in the HIA
process.
One possibility for promoting continuing education of professionals is
flexible and modular training programs in a variety of agencies—public, non-
profit, and private—and in different levels of government. For example, the
CDC Healthy Community Design Initiative has supported state health depart-
ments in training and mentoring local health departments in HIA; the initiative
has made it possible for several jurisdictions to complete HIAs (CDC 2011).
Such training should be expanded to reach a wider array of individuals and
groups. Furthermore, because HIA practice has to overcome barriers related to
the lack of interagency collaborative structures, it is important to engage and
train senior-level local, state, and federal agency officials and decision-makers.
Leaders of the federal civilian workforce, such as the federal Senior Executive
Service (OPM 2011), could benefit from continued education in HIA because it
would raise health awareness in their own work.
Emergence of Professional Associations and Groups
Like any growing field, the field of HIA could benefit from a professional
association or society. The society could facilitate continued professional devel-
opment of HIA practitioners and develop, monitor, and facilitate standards of
professional education and practice in HIA. It could also establish and oversee
publication of peer-reviewed research and scholarship in and about HIA through

a professional journal. Since 2008, a network of practitioners in North America

has been working to advance the practice of HIA in the United States. The first
collective product of the network was a set of minimum elements and voluntary
practice standards for the field (Bhatia et al. 2010). The network has continued
to meet periodically and is taking steps to build awareness, mentor new practi-
tioners, and support integration of HIA and EIA. It is expected to formalize its
relationships and activities in a professional organization in the near future.
INCREASE IN RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP IN

Scholarship for Developing Methods and Evidence for

The methods and evidence used in HIA practice vary widely and are
inconsistent in quality. Research to improve the analytic methods available to
HIA practitioners is important, and research evidence that ties distal upstream
factors to health outcomes that could be used in the HIA process is essential.
Suggested research topics on the role of distal or upstream factors1 in health that
could strengthen the evidence base available to HIA practitioners include the
following:
 How health is affected by specific federal policy decisions and actions

related to agricultural policy, education, energy development, environmental
protection, housing, immigration, infrastructure, military defense, national
parks, natural resources, taxation, and transportation.
 How health is affected by state fiscal policy (such as property tax law),
agriculture, education, welfare-to-work, and land-use and growth-management
policies.2
 How health is affected by planning processes (such as comprehensive
planning, growth-management planning, and land-use planning), regulatory
mechanisms (such as subdivision regulations and zoning and building bylaws),
fiscal tools (such as local tax regulations and incentives), infrastructure projects,
and school district policies.
Beyond the primary research suggested above, HIA practice would also be
enhanced by developing approaches to apply decision-theory concepts in the con-
text of the complex quantitative and qualitative information used in HIA. Evaluat-
ing multiple alternative policies in the face of tradeoffs and uncertainty is the
1
These factors include the role of the natural and built environments and social, eco-
nomic, and political environments in fostering or hindering public health.
2
Not all states in the country enact statewide land-use and growth-management poli-
cies. In states where such policies exist, consideration of HIA is relevant.

hallmark of decision science, and methods that can leverage the strengths of deci-
sion-science approaches—such as multiattribute utility analysis (Keeney and
Raiffa 1976)—in the context of HIA would be valuable (Merkhofer et al. 1997).
Scholarship on Health Impact Assessment Practices and Their Effectiveness
Evaluation of HIA has occurred to some extent internationally (Harris-

Roxas 2009). However, because HIA is relatively new in the United States,
there is a paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of HIA practice in this coun-
try. Such research is especially necessary inasmuch as HIA may require the in-
vestment of substantial public and private resources. Research is needed to
document HIA practices and its effectiveness in influencing decision-making
processes and promoting public health. Existing tools of evaluation research
might be used and adapted to evaluate HIA (Rossi et al. 1999; Trochim 2000).
Potential research includes the following:
 Development and empirical validation of theories or frameworks to un-

derstand and assess the effect of HIA on decision-making and related social
processes.
 The effect of HIA on improving short-term and long-term health out-
comes.
 The role of local, tribal, state, and federal governance structures and
decision-making processes in integrating public-health concerns into public
policy.
 Methods to address the challenges and opportunities in using HIA to
inform government decision-making at all levels and branches of government.
Improvement of HIA practice requires scholarship for and on HIA prac-

tice, and such scholarship cannot be generated without financial support. Finan-
cial support can come from philanthropic, private, and public entities, such as
the National Institutes of Health, CDC, and the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality.
HIA practitioners are most likely to benefit from translational research that
synthesizes high-quality scientific evidence for use by practitioners and policy-
makers. Such an effort would have to gauge the quality of the latest available
research evidence on the role of distal factors on public health and synthesize
that information for use by HIA practitioners.
The synthesized evidence can be disseminated to practitioners by using a
variety of tools, such as journals, on-line repositories, and newsletters. Among
those options, an online repository would be a centralized and dynamic tool for
bringing the latest synthesized research to HIA practitioners. Such a repository
may be made available by a number of entities, including universities, research

centers, private groups, and government agencies, such as CDC.3 As a publicly

available and credible source of information on public health for the nation,
CDC is especially well-positioned to establish and maintain such a repository.
DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES TO SUPPORT

A key barrier to the use of HIA is the availability of resources for commu-
nities and groups interested in undertaking it. Resources are also essential for
continued education and training of professionals in the field, and the lack of
resources affects the quality of HIA. Furthermore, resources are needed for
monitoring and conducting evaluations.
For more resources to become available to support the development of
HIA practice, society as a whole has to recognize the importance of considering
health in all policies, programs, plans, and projects to improve quality of life and
to protect the health of future generations. Yet, many of the connections that
HIA makes explicit are neither obvious nor intuitive to the general public or to
decision-makers in nonhealth (and health) agencies. A national information
campaign is crucial for highlighting the importance of a wide array of decisions
to public health, clarifying the role of HIA in the decision-making process, and
advancing HIA practice. Such a campaign could be conducted by existing health
agencies, such as CDC, or by new organizations, such as a new association for
HIA, if such an entity were to emerge. Such information could be disseminated
through an online repository, for example, one managed by CDC.
Although this chapter is focused largely on barriers to and options for de-
veloping structures and policies to support HIA in the public sector, the commit-
tee recognizes that private-sector decisions also have health implications. The
committee encourages the private sector to incorporate HIA into projects and
developments that are likely to have important impacts on health and health de-
terminants. Private-sector planning and development initiatives could also con-
sider using HIA as a means of informing stakeholders of possible adverse or
beneficial effects and allowing them to participate in planning and shaping pro-
posed projects, programs, or plans in a way so as to minimize adverse effects
and optimize beneficial ones.
REFERENCES
3
A number of on-line resources for HIA exist; for example, the University of Califor-
nia, Los Angeles offers an on-line learning and information center on HIA, and the
Health Impact Project offers an interactive, searchable database of completed and in-
progress HIAs in the United States. However, providing a synthesis of research evidence
does not appear to be the central function of such Web sites.


November 2010 [online]. Available: http://www.sfphes.org/HIA_Tools/HIA_Pract
ice_Standards.pdf [accessed May 23, 2011].
CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). 2011. Healthy Community Design
Initiative: Recent Accomplishments. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[online]. Available: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/accomplishments.htm [ac-
cessed July 25, 2011].
Corburn, J. 2009. Toward the Healthy City: People, Places and the Politics of Urban
Planning. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
DHHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). 2010. Health People 2020
Framework. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services [online]. Available: http://www.healthypeople.gov/
2020/consortium/HP2020Framework.pdf [accessed Feb. 2, 2011].
Harris-Roxas, B. 2009. Conceptual Framework for Evaluating the Impact and Effective-
ness of Health Impact Assessment. Centre for Health Equity Training, Research
and Evaluation (CHETRE), The University of New South Wales, Sydney [online].
Available: http://www.hiaconnect.edu.au/evaluating_hia.htm [accessed May 25,
2011].
Health Impact Project. 2010. Alaska Department of Health and Social Services Seeks to
Hire a Medical Epidemiologist for HIA Program. Health Impact Project In the
News: January 12, 2010 [online]. Available: http://www.healthimpactproject.org/
news/in/alaska-department-of-health-and-social-services-seeks-to-hire-a-medical-e
pidemiologist-for-hia-program [accessed July 25, 2011].
Keeney, R.L. and H. Raiffa. 1976. Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and
Value Tradeoffs. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Merkhofer, M.W., R. Conway, and R.G. Anderson. 1997. Multiattribute utility analysis
as a framework for public participation in siting a hazardous waste management
facility. Environ. Manage. 21(6):831-839.
National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council. 2010. Status Report.
July 1, 2010 [online]. Available: http://www.hhs.gov/news/reports/nationapreven
tion2010report.pdf [accessed Feb. 2, 2011].
OPM (U.S. Office of Personnel Management). 2011. About the Senior Executive Service.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Washington, DC [online]. Available:
http://www.opm.gov/ses/about_ses/index.asp [accessed Feb. 3, 2011].
Rossi, P.H., H. Freeman, and M.W. Lipsey. 1999. Evaluation, Sixth edition. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Trochim, W. 2000. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Cincinnati,
OH: Atomic Dog Publishing.
Tulalip Tribes. 2000. A Comprehensive Guide for American Indian and Alaska Native
Communities. The Tulalip Tribes of Washington Present: Participating in the Na-
tional Environmental Policy Act and Developing a Tribal Environmental Policy
Act. October 2000 [online]. Available: http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/ReNEPA/
ReNepa.nsf/All+Documents/C3A140A5BC48BC8D852570240073CFA3/$FILE/
TEPA.pdf [accessed July 25, 2011].

Appendix A
Experiences with Health

Impact Assessment
To develop a framework and guidance for the practice of health impact as-
sessment (HIA) in the United States, the committee felt that it was critical to
review the HIA experience of the international community given its use of HIA
over the last several decades. The international experience in implementing HIA
has involved different institutional arrangements, mechanisms for knowledge
transfer, tools, and capacity. On examination of the international experience, the
committee identified three main mechanisms for introducing HIA. The first is to
incorporate HIA into existing assessment processes—for example, environ-
mental impact assessment (EIA) under the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA)—and thus make human health an explicit consideration in the mecha-
nisms for approval of policies, plans, programs, and projects. The second is to
require HIA explicitly by law or regulation or in response to defined triggers.
The third is to use HIA voluntarily but to provide various degrees of government
support and resources. In this appendix, the committee examines how the inter-
national community has used those mechanisms and what lessons the global
experience offers for one who is considering a framework and guidance for HIA
in the United States.
This appendix is not a comprehensive review, but it seeks to summarize
HIA experience in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Thailand. It also looks at the
use of HIA by indigenous people and multilateral organizations. The committee
reviews HIA experience in the United States and discusses the relationship be-
tween HIA and the process of EIA. The appendix concludes with comments on
the use of HIA in the private sector and some important lessons learned from the
experience to date that are relevant to the future use of HIA in the United States.
The committee notes that this appendix uses the terms health and health impact
assessment. To examine the international experience, the committee recognized
that it was important to consider the wider policy context and to view HIA as
one among many methods by which health is incorporated into decision-making.
130

Appendix A 131
CANADA
In the early 1970s, a central government think tank, the Long Range
Health Planning Branch, identified the effects of lifestyle and environment on
public health and began to consider policy solutions to improve public health
(Laframboise 1973; McKay 2000). That activity culminated in a report that
identified objectives for the health-care system and for the prevention of health
problems and promotion of good health (Lalonde 1974). A combination of re-
search and advocacy was introduced to support and validate the notion that pub-
lic policies affect determinants of health (Milio 1981; WHO 1986, 1988).
Healthy Public Policy
Health and environment are under provincial jurisdiction in Canada. Two

provinces, British Columbia and Québec, have formalized HIA as a component
of policy-making, and they offer different experiences (Banken 2001, 2004;
Kwiatkowski 2004; Gagnon et al. 2008). In British Columbia, attention to the
health of the population was advanced by a group of government officials who
had an interest in health promotion. From 1989 to 1995, structures and policies
for HIA were starting to be included in British Columbia’s health-care policy,
and it was proposed that HIA of all government projects, programs, and laws be
conducted. Guidelines were produced, and a series of workshops were held to
raise awareness of and develop capacity for HIA1 (Banken 2004). By 1999, the
values underpinning the reform of health care had changed, and resources for
HIA were redeployed. The guidelines that required the use of HIA in govern-
ment decisions were not changed, but they were no longer seen as mandatory.
Banken (2004) concluded that the rise of HIA in that short time had been accel-
erated by key persons in the British Columbia Ministry of Health, that it did not
benefit from wide ownership, and that it had become closely identified with a
particular policy orientation. Banken contended that if other institutions had
been more involved in examining the value of and establishing structures for
HIA, support for HIA would not have withered as quickly after the policy direc-
tion changed and after key persons left the ministry.
Québec had a different experience in using HIA as part of healthy public
policy. Banken (2001) traced the linking of environment and health to robust
public-health input during hearings on the use of pesticides (BAPE 1983). That
input led to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Québec’s Minis-
tries of Health and Environment. A framework was developed to support the
memorandum and led to the systematic practice of integrating health and the
environment into projects and policies (Banken 2001, 2004). In the 1990s, pol-
1
The committee is not aware of any examples of HIA from this period. Therefore, al-
though it is documented that HIA was a part of the policy discussion, it is not possible to
evaluate how HIA was conducted in British Columbia.

icy documents recognized the need for intersectoral initiatives to improve health
(Government of Québec 1998, 1999) and explicitly recommended the systematic
assessment of the impacts of public policies on health. The assessments were to
be conducted by the Study Commission for Health and Social Services (Com-
mission d’Étude sur les Services de Santé et les Services Sociaux), which ana-
lyzes health services.
HIA was included in Québec’s 2001 Public Health Act, which requires
government ministries and agencies to ensure that legislative provisions do not
adversely affect the health of the population. It also requires that the minister of
public health be consulted on all policies that could have an important health
effect (Section 54, Government of Québec 2001). Figure A-1 shows the number
of requests for consultations from other ministries. In 2011, the national public
health director and the assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Health and
Social Services (Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux) of Québec stated
that there were 434 requests for advice from 2003 to 2011 (Poirier 2011a). Al-
though the demands of the legislative calendar influence the number of requests
from year to year, the figure indicates a clear upward trend. The trend is ascribed
to the Ministry of Health and Social Service’s efforts to develop an understand-
ing of Section 54 across the government, improvements in how the ministry
processes requests for consultation and provides its advice, and the application
of a public-health perspective to a wider array of policies.
120
107
Number of Requests for Consultation
100
80 73
65
62
60
41 41
40 36
20
9
0
2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011
FIGURE A-1 Number of requests for consultation received by the Québec Ministry of
Health and Social Services, 2003-2008. Source: L. Jobin, Ministry of Health and Social
Services, Québec, personal communication, 2011.

Appendix A 133
The Québec public-health law is noteworthy because it focuses on the

processes by which the government will request assistance on health issues and
on how that assistance will be provided by the Ministry of Health (for more in-
formation, see NCCHPP 2008). Clearly defining the process has helped to en-
sure that government departments request health input when writing policy. The
Ministry of Health and Social Services has also worked to heighten awareness
and to gain the support of other government ministries and agencies (NCCHPP
2008). Although changes are occurring slowly, channels of communication be-
yond government departments covered by the law are being opened, and this has
led to the integration of the health sector (and health consideration) into the po-
litical-administrative process. Furthermore, the government’s knowledge devel-
opment and transfer strategy to support the implementation of the law has
strengthened research capacity on healthy public policy in academic sectors and
in the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec (L. St-Pierre, National Col-
laborating Centre for Public Policy and Health, Québec, personal communica-
tion, 2010).
Some issues, however, still need to be resolved. Many government minis-
tries do not comply with the law, and most requests to the Ministry of Health
come from the Executive Committee, which is well versed in the importance of
health effects. In addition, the process does not specify a particular method of
conducting a health assessment (L. St-Pierre, National Collaborating Centre for
Public Policy and Health, Québec, personal communication, 2010). Further ef-
forts clearly are required to foster responsibility for health in some parts of gov-
ernment, such as economics and finance. The next steps envisaged include feed-
back mechanisms to monitor and evaluate how support is offered and taken and
how recommendations are implemented. Continued support for changes in prac-
tice is needed through high-quality and strategic evaluations that facilitate ac-
tions early in the decision-making process, knowledge transfer, and strategic
monitoring (Héroux de Sève et al. 2008; Poirier 2011b).
Examining Human Health in Environmental Impact Assessment
In 1995, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Environmental

and Occupational Health convened a task force in response to reviews that dem-
onstrated that health aspects were inconsistently or only partially addressed in
EIA. The task force was asked to develop a definition of HIA that would be ac-
ceptable to all jurisdictions, a public-health framework appropriate to HIA,
guidance and training material for HIA, and strategies for increasing awareness
about HIA, EIA, and the relationship between human health and the environ-
ment (Kwiatkowski 2004). The task force concluded that HIA should be pro-
moted within the existing legislated federal or provincial EIA processes; that
HIA was not the responsibility of any one government department or agency in
that many factors—including environmental, social, economic, and occupational

ones—affect public health; and that HIA should use a multidisciplinary ap-
proach informed by the many determinants of health rather than a narrow defini-
tion of health (Kwiatkowski 2004). A review by Davies and Sadler (1997) was
influential in establishing a case for examining human health in environmental
assessment in Canada. A major output of the initiatives was the Canadian
Handbook on Health Impact Assessment, a comprehensive resource that was
first published in 1998 and has since been updated (Health Canada 2004a,b,c,d).
About 6,000 projects a year undergo EIA under the Canadian Environ-
mental Assessment Act, so it is no small feat to ensure that potential health ef-
fects are considered for each project (Kwiatkowski and Ooi 2003). EIAs are
characterized as screening, comprehensive study, or public-panel review. As
implied by its name, screening is less intensive than the other types and accounts
for over 95% of EIAs conducted (Kwiatkowski and Ooi 2003).
What is the current experience of incorporating HIA into EIA? Social ef-
fects are considered in EIA in Canada; this makes it somewhat easier to include
a wide array of health determinants in assessments (M. Orenstein and M. Lee,
Habitat Health Impact Consulting, personal communication, 2011). Noble and
Bronson (2005, 2006) reviewed three mining case studies and conducted a sur-
vey of environmental-assessment practitioners, health practitioners, administra-
tors, and special-interest groups in northern Canada. They found that health has
typically been considered only in the early stages of the environmental-
assessment process and that only physical health effects associated with project-
related environmental damage have generally been considered. As a rule, health
and social determinants have not been considered or have been considered only
in the context of factors—such as employment opportunities and worker health
and safety—that the project sponsor directly controls. The authors acknowl-
edged, however, that the scope of attention to health in EIA has more recently
been expanded to reflect a wider array of health determinants that includes a
group’s culture and its traditional land use. They concluded that there is a need
to adopt measures to mitigate adverse effects and optimize beneficial effects that
the community is sensitive to, to ensure that the measures are effective, and to
monitor and evaluate the effects after project approval (Noble and Bronson
2005, 2006). The committee notes that the somewhat bleak assessment by the
authors is based on a small sample and may be unduly harsh.
Although systematic collaboration between public health and the envi-
ronment sector can be improved, research indicates that health is being consid-
ered to some extent in EIA. Overall, Canada has some of the most extensive and
successful experiences of including HIA in EIA and of analyzing and improving
HIA practice. This work is not always labeled as HIA, but health is increasingly
a component of an integrated approach to environmental assessment (Orenstein
et al. 2010; M. Orenstein and M. Lee, Habitat Health Impact Consulting, per-
sonal communication, 2011).

Appendix A 135
THE EUROPEAN UNION
HIA has been practiced in the European Union (EU) since the 1980s. Dur-
ing the 1990s, there were developments in HIA methodology and practice in
Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In the late 1990s,
the WHO European Centre for Health Policy played a key strategic role in
European HIA policy development, and its 1999 Gothenburg consensus confer-
ence produced the first universally accepted definition of HIA.
Although requirements and practice have differed, there are examples of
health assessment in the environmental-assessment framework,2 in stand-alone
HIAs, and in all types of policies—from local policies to policies covering the
EU. Explicit policies for HIA exist, but its practice is often advanced through
the actions of committed individuals. Research grants from the EU play an im-
portant role in enabling research and in developing techniques and capacity for
HIA. The grants have funded multicenter studies that involve universities, the
public sector, and occasionally private-sector bodies across the EU (see, for
example, Abrahams et al. 2004; Hilding-Rydevik et al. 2005; WHO 2005a,b,c,d;
Wismar et al. 2007; Gulis et al. 2008; HEIMTSA consortium 2010; and
INTARESE consortium 2010).
In the EU, HIA is recognized as a process that sits within the broader
sphere of public-health policy and sustainable development. It is one of the ways
in which partnerships are developed between municipalities and health authori-
ties and is increasingly used as a mechanism by which land-use or spatial plan-
ning can work in partnership with public health. Although skills and capacity for
HIA are not widespread, there are isolated examples of universities’ incorporat-
ing HIA as part of a curriculum to train planners and public-health professionals.
In a study of HIA across Europe, Wismar et al. (2007) showed that HIA has
been used in various countries, at various levels, and in various sectors. They
noted that participation and equity considerations have played substantial roles
in the practice of HIA and concluded that despite the reported variations, HIA
can be used prospectively, cover all stages of the policy process, and use differ-
ent types of approaches.
The following sections provide background on the EU and on the inte-
grated assessment framework used for EU policy. Approaches for integrating
health into environmental assessment across Europe are discussed next,3 and
then other approaches that have been put into place across Europe to enable HIA
to be conducted are reviewed.
2
Regarding environmental assessment in the EU, human-health measures are included
in directives and legislation that regulate the effects of development on the environment.
3
This summary does not examine legislation for equality and human rights in the EU,
which also leads to policy assessment and can incorporate health issues.

Incorporation of Health into Policies, Plans, Programs,

and Projects in the European Union
In 2010, the EU had 27 member states and four applicants for membership
(see Box A-1). Policies and laws that apply throughout the EU are produced
mainly by the joint work of three institutions: the European Commission, the
European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union. The European
Commission, which proposes new laws and then works with member states to
implement them, is divided into departments and services (EC 2011a). Public
health falls under the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers, and envi-
ronmental stewardship falls under the Directorate-General for the Environment.
Public health is a relatively new policy topic at the EU level, and member states
continue to hold the main responsibility for national health policy.4 Actions at
the EU level complement actions at the national level, for example, by address-
ing major health threats and issues that have a cross-border or international im-
pact, such as pandemics and bioterrorism; by addressing health threats related to
the free movement of goods, services, and people; by promoting healthier life-
styles; and by supporting the work of national authorities. It is recognized that
public health is not solely an issue for health policy. For example, in 1997, the
Amsterdam Treaty of the EU required that all European Community policies
protect health. Thus, the “health in all policies” approach is required for internal
and external policies, and support is given for the use of impact assessment and
other tools that evaluate health (CEC 2007).
The European Commission assesses initiatives for their potential eco-
nomic, social, and environmental consequences before it proposes them (EC
2011b). Health is considered in that process as one of several topics in an inte-
grated impact assessment framework. The guidelines for the framework were
updated in 2009 to review public health and safety and to enhance the considera-
tion of social impacts, including access to and effects on social protection,
health, and educational systems (EC 2009a). Specific attention has been given to
distributional effects and effects on poverty and social inclusion in the EU and
developing countries (EC 2009b). Reviews show a small increase in the number
of mentions of the word health in the European Commission’s impact assess-
ment reports; thus, although progress is slow, consideration of health in the
framework is increasing (Ståhl 2010). However, the framework for impact
4
Before 1992, health was addressed in the context of health and safety in the work-
place and as an issue of consumer safety. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty (EC 1992) was the
first treaty to feature an article on public health and to explain the added value of Europe-
wide approaches to common challenges in health while confirming that health care re-
mains the mandate of national authorities. Later reform treaties (EC 1997, 2007) en-
hanced the role of the EU in supporting member states in cooperating and sharing good
practice, such as in health-technology assessment, and in tackling cross-border health
threats and disease prevention.

Appendix A 137
BOX A-1 European Union Members and When They Joined
1952 – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands

1973 – Denmark, Ireland, and United Kingdom
1981 – Greece
1986 – Portugal and Spain
1995 – Austria, Finland, and Sweden
2004 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Slovakia, and Slovenia
2007 – Bulgaria and Romania
Candidate Countries: Croatia, Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
and Iceland.
Source: EU 2011a,b.
assessment has been criticized for failing to improve the consideration of public
health, for example, in focusing on specific health services rather than the wider
health of the general public (Ståhl 2010), in placing a low priority on health so
that it is not seen as a factor that can differentiate between policy options (Ståhl
2010), in focusing on the effects on the economy or the business environment,
and in being open to undue influence from corporate interests (Smith et al.
2010a,b).
Environmental-Assessment Directives
As noted, one of the roles of the Directorate-General for the Environment

is to ensure that member states comply with the requirements of the environ-
mental directives. Environmental assessment is a key mechanism for evaluating
individual projects identified by the EIA directive (Council of the European
Union 1985) or public plans or programs identified by the strategic environ-
mental assessment (SEA) directive (EP/Council 2001). “The common principle
of both directives is to ensure that plans, programs, and projects that are likely to
have significant effects on the environment are made subject to an environ-
mental assessment prior to their approval or authorization” (EC 2011c). Consul-
tation with the public is a key feature of environmental-assessment procedures.
Member states are free to supplement the assessment processes, and they
must incorporate them into their national consent regimes (that is, the frame-
work by which projects are given permission). For that reason, there is some
variation in processes between member states. The Directorate-General for the
Environment ensures that each member state implements the EIA and SEA
directives, and the European Court of Justice is the final arbiter if assessments
are disputed. As both directives are procedural, the courts tend to be concerned

with how the assessments have been conducted rather than with their accuracy.
Issues of quality are typically left to the organizations overseeing the consenting
process, although that can be problematic; for example, health authorities are not
always asked to comment on the health components of environmental assess-
ments.
Environmental Impact Assessment
The EIA directive applies to public and private projects (Council of the
European Union 1985).5 Annex I of the directive stipulates projects for which it
is mandatory to conduct an EIA, such as railways, roads, waste-disposal installa-
tion, and waste-water treatment plants. Member states have discretion over
whether to conduct an EIA on projects listed in Annex II, such as some types of
agricultural or extractive-industry projects, urban-development projects, and
flood-relief projects.
Although the rationale for the EIA directive states that “the effects of a
project on the environment must be assessed in order to take account of con-
cerns to protect human health” (Council of the European Union 1985), human
health is not explicitly included in the list of direct and indirect effects of a pro-
ject that must be identified, described, and assessed.6 Although environmental
assessment considers health protection (for example, calculations of safe expo-
sures are included in the derivation of environmental limits for air emissions and
water quality), EIAs do not look in detail at the populations likely to be exposed,
and compliance with the environmental limits does not mean that there will be
no health effects (even small increases in air emissions can have effects on
health).
National governments have interpreted the EIA directive differently, and
their interpretations determine the extent to which health is explicitly considered
in EIA (Bond 2004). For example, the English ministry responsible for planning
has resisted including health explicitly in EIA; in contrast, Germany has sought
to address health in EIA and passed a resolution in 1992 on HIA in the context
of EIA (Fehr et al. 2004). The boundaries are set by bureaucrats in government
ministries whose interests often lie in avoiding placement of extra duties on their
minister or on businesses. Frequently, the approach taken is to meet legal com-
pliance with minimum expense, and this can result in poor coverage of health. A
review of 39 environmental impact statements in the United Kingdom found that
72% did not list human health in the table of contents, 49% provided no analysis
of possible human-health effects, and 67% did not include sufficient data to es-
5
The EIA directive has been amended three times (EP/Council 2001, 2003, 2009) to
bring it into line with United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conventions
(UNECE 1991, 1998) and to update the list of projects that come under the EIA directive
to include those related to transport, capture, and storage of carbon dioxide.
6
The effects include those on human beings, fauna and flora, soil, water, air, climate
and landscape, interaction between them, material assets, and cultural heritage.

Appendix A 139
timate the number of people potentially affected by the project or activity being
considered (British Medical Association 1998 cited in Bond 2004).
A study of the application of the EIA directive concluded that when possi-
ble human health effects of a project should be assessed in an EIA rather than by
a separate HIA (Hilding-Rydevik et al. 2005). The authors acknowledged that
best practice for including health in EIA remains undefined and depends on a
number of factors, such as how health is defined (that is, whether it is based on
environmental impacts or on a wider array of human health determinants)
(Hilding-Rydevik et al. 2005).
In a 2009 survey of the application of the EIA directive, all new member
states reported that human health aspects are assessed as part of the EIA reports
(COWI 2009). Common elements include the identification of human health
effects during the scoping stage of EIA, consultations with health authorities or
experts in the field on human health, and assessment of human health effects as
a part of the environmental documentation submitted by a developer. Few new
member states, however, have produced specific guidance documents for those
activities (COWI 2009). Most new member states that were surveyed define
health in environmental terms and involve public-health authorities mainly on
environmental-health matters. For example, in Hungary, human health issues are
examined in the EIA procedures for transport projects (focusing on noise),
transmission lines (focusing on nonionizing radiation), hazardous-waste man-
agement facilities (focusing on complex effects on environmental health), and
strip mines and cement factories (focusing on air pollution). Malta is the only
member state that mentions well-being and states that, when relevant, health and
well-being are studied with reference to socioeconomic impacts (COWI 2009).
Strategic Environmental Assessment
The SEA directive (EP/Council 2001) refers to public plans and programs
but not to policies. The idea is to identify issues at a strategic level so that they
do not arise at a project level; in practice, however, the link between strategic
assessment and project assessment has proved problematic. Although SEAs are
used to evaluate plans in various sectors, they are conducted primarily for land-
use planning (EP/Council 2001).7 If the environmental effects of plans or pro-
grams are deemed likely to cross national boundaries, the member state in
whose territory the plan or program is being prepared must consult the other
member states (EC 2011d). The SEA directive, unlike the EIA directive, explic-
itly requires the consideration of “the likely significant effects on the environ-
ment, including on issues such as … human health” (EP/Council 2001). The
debate on how to include health in SEA is evolving in Europe.
7
SEA is mandatory for plans or programs that are prepared for a prescribed range of
sectors and set the framework for granting consent for the future development of projects
listed in the EIA directive (EC 2011d).

The SEA directive requires that numerous aspects be examined, including

human health, but it does not provide detailed definitions of those aspects. Thus,
health is addressed in SEA practice in various ways and in ways that do not sys-
tematically require the input of public health or even formal sign-off from health
authorities. In Denmark, health is a formal component in the assessment of spa-
tial plans; noise, drinking water, air pollution, recreation and outdoor life, and
traffic safety are considered with regard to health (Kørnøv 2009). A review of
eight SEAs in England and Germany found that all considered aspects of physi-
cal and natural effects (such as noise, emissions, and pollution) on health, and
four considered social and behavioral aspects (Fischer 2010). Ensuring that im-
portant health effects are satisfactorily identified and considered is challenging,
and the SEA directive has not yet led to widespread involvement of public-
health experts in the assessment process or in planning. One difficulty is that the
health sector tends to be outside the plan-making process, and most HIA experi-
ence tends to be at the project level (Cave et al. 2007).
In 2010, the SEA protocol on EIA, which has been adopted by at least 35
member countries, will enter into force (UNECE 2003). It goes much further
than the SEA directive in referring explicitly throughout to impacts on environ-
ment and health, in indicating that all health impacts should be considered (not
only those associated with environmental factors), and in indicating that health
authorities should be consulted at the different stages of the process.
Examples of Advancing Health Impact Assessment

Independently of Environmental Impact Assessment
and Strategic Environmental Assessment
Member countries have taken different approaches to advancing HIA out-

side the environmental-assessment process. Since the late 1990s, Sweden has
used HIA as a mechanism for addressing the determinants of health in policy-
making (Berensson 2004). Although no legislation requires HIA, agencies,
counties, and municipalities continue to learn about and use it. Local politicians
across Sweden were actively involved in developing the country’s initial guid-
ance documents for HIA and recommended that health be an early part of all
policy discussions (SFCC 1998). The decision to screen all political proposals to
determine which should be further evaluated led to many policies being recom-
mended for HIA (Nilunger et al. 2003).
Sweden’s Health Policy Act of 2003 based its national objectives on
health determinants rather than diseases or health problems and linked achieve-
ment of the objectives to a monitoring system and annual evaluations. In 2005-
2008, 11 central agencies and all of Sweden’s county administrative boards were
required to implement HIA and were supported by the National Institute of Pub-
lic Health in doing so (Knutsson and Linell 2010). Although the requirement has
heightened interest in and political support for issues related to public health and
particularly HIA, there is no legal requirement for HIA, and there are no specific

Appendix A 141
resources for its institutionalization. The result is that implementation is based

on the leadership and good will of local individuals and on support by the Na-
tional Institute of Public Health. Under the existing arrangement, it takes time to
develop the capacity for HIA as an integral part of an organization’s activities,
and work relationships among the sectors have been difficult to achieve
(Knutsson and Linell 2010). County administrative boards have made the fol-
lowing observations: legislation or political demand is required to ensure that
the public sector implements HIA on a regular basis; the integrated assessment
of social, economic, and environmental factors is desirable; and the National
Institute of Public Health has used the awareness of EIA processes as a way of
structuring HIA approaches and of introducing HIA (Knutsson and Linell 2010).
An evaluation of the use of HIA by one health district authority (South West
Stockholm) found that a critical factor in the success of HIA was that manage-
ment at the political and administrative levels had close working relationships,
which were achieved and maintained through recurrent opportunities for training
and for opportunities in which HIA had the potential to influence policy-making
(Berensson 2004).
Slovakia’s government passed legislation in 2007 that requires HIA of
projects, programs, and policies (O’Mullane 2011). The enforcement of the leg-
islation has been delayed to prepare an institutional framework that includes
public-health input. Environmental-health officers in the 37 regional public-
health authorities will screen projects to determine which are suitable for HIA. If
an HIA is deemed necessary, it will be outsourced to and conducted by the pri-
vate sector and then evaluated by the regional public-health authority. The Na-
tional Public Health Authority will have the responsibility of implementing HIA
throughout its 37 regional authorities.
Finland has a long-standing interest in incorporating health into all poli-
cies and institutionalized HIA for projects in 2002-2006 (Ståhl et al. 2006). The
HIAs included stakeholder involvement; were conducted by STAKES, a public-
policy institute that has expertise in HIA; and took about 2 months to complete.
Local governments were then given the responsibility for HIA and support was
provided by the public-policy institute that trained EIA officers and health, edu-
cation, and local government officials. That process was considered to take too
long, and a rapid HIA procedure was developed by STAKES for local govern-
ment committees to support local-level decision-making. Some cities imple-
mented the procedure successfully, but some sectors objected to impact assess-
ments on particular issues. Where there was resistance to HIA, it was perceived
to be a result of the loss of power over decision-making because of the need to
consider a wider array of options.
More recently, Finland introduced norms and guidelines for implementing
integrated impact assessment, which has been required by law for many years
and is led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The norms established minimum
requirements for impact assessments and allowed questions to be raised if health
issues were not included. The Finnish experience points to the essential roles of
legislation, of clear process requirements for the implementation of assessments

(norms and standards), and of the allocation of budgets (resources) for success-
ful implementation of impact assessment. In the Finnish context, the use of inte-
grated impact assessment, which is required by law, is seen as the best way to
integrate health and environment issues into policy-making (T. Ståhl, National
Institute of Public Health, Tampere, Finland, personal communication, 2011).
In England, an act of Parliament stipulates that all strategies passed by the
mayor of London must reduce health disparities in London (HM Government of
Great Britain 2007). That requirement means that public-health input is required
in all sectors, it places health assessment firmly within the policy process, and it
makes the reduction of health disparities a matter that spans the activities of the
Greater London Authority. London strategies for transportation, housing, em-
ployment, and education have all been subject to HIA (Opinion Leader Research
2003; Bowen 2004; London Health Commission 2011), and capacity for HIA
has been developed at regional and local levels around London.
Alternative approaches for advancing HIA at local levels have focused on
particular funding programs. For example, in 2000, a redevelopment program in
Wales required that all proposals take health into account; accordingly, HIAs
had to be completed to ensure that proposals were funded (see, for example,
Breeze and Kemm 2000). The Welsh Assembly has formed a special unit to
assess health impacts of proposed legislation and advise parliamentarians
(Breeze and Kemm 2000).
National and local requirements for HIA may be supported by information
repositories, for example, the HIA gateway,8 which was funded by the English
Department of Health. Advisory bodies have also supported and propagated the
use of HIA. For example, the Welsh Health Impact Assessment Support Unit at
the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences was formed in 2001. It formed
a partnership with the National Public Health Service and works to develop ca-
pacity for HIA in Wales, provide information and advice, and conduct research
and evaluation. Examples of similar centers in other parts of Europe include the
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Nether-
lands; the Institute of Public Health, North Rhine Westphalia, in Germany; and
the Unit for Health Promotion Research in the University of Southern Denmark.
Some centers have informal oversight and advisory roles. RIVM, for example,
provides policy advice to the Ministry of Health in environmental health and
chronic diseases and specializes in the quantification of health effects in which
HIA expertise plays a role (L. den Broeder, National Institute for Public Health
and the Environment [RIVM], the Netherlands, personal communication, 2010).
The experience of the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe Healthy
Cities Network (HCN) provides some lessons that could be instructive for the
United States by suggesting how U.S. cities and counties might adopt and adapt
HIA. It also indicates the magnitude of the work and time required to achieve
the change in policy infrastructure to advance HIA and to ensure that all sectors
are comfortable and confident with the process. The HCN is made up of more
8
See www.hiagateway.org.uk.

Appendix A 143
than 90 European cities (WHO 2011). To join the HCN, cities must apply, they
must fund their input, and they must demonstrate a high level of political sup-
port. Thus, the cities involved are, in theory, willing partners and are keen to
learn from the HCN and adapt their policies accordingly. Since 1998, healthy
urban planning has been a part of the network (Barton et al. 2009), and capacity-
building and peer support have always been important elements of the move-
ment as a whole. Phase IV of the WHO Healthy Cities Project ran from 2003 to
2008 and included HIA as one of its core activities. In 2003, the focus was on
adoption of HIA; the two main types of barriers to adoption were characterised
as technical and political (Ison 2009). Suggestions for overcoming technical
barriers included providing training; technical support, particularly in initial
HIAs; mentoring; and peer review. Suggestions for overcoming political barriers
included “increasing political understanding of what HIA is and what it can of-
fer; involving the politicians at a strategic level in setting the conditions for the
use of HIA by the municipality; piloting HIA with proposals that are likely can-
didates to increase the potential for health gain; [and] presenting the results of
HIA in a useful and useable format for politicians so that health can be taken
into consideration during decision-making” (Ison 2009, p. i69). Internal evalua-
tion of the HCN found that it has advanced HIA in several municipalities in the
region and has sensitized other municipalities to the relevance of creating health
gain (Ison 2009); however, there is no consideration of the effectiveness of the
HIAs that the HCN recommends.
The European experience has shown that capacity-building is important,
particularly for knowledge transfer within and between organizations. Although
it is recognized as a useful approach, HIA is rarely a core responsibility listed in
job descriptions. Public-health specialists in the health sector find it difficult to
dedicate time to HIA, and there is no clear career path for young professionals
who wish to pursue HIA. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, there are a few
short courses in HIA that are seen as part of continuing professional develop-
ment. At the University of the West of England, a substantial proportion of
planners are trained in the Faculty of the Built Environment. The university has
a large public-health school and requires planners and public-health profession-
als to take a course in each other’s field. In some respects, the lack of capacity is
being met by the private sector as specialists in environmental assessment are
starting to add HIA to their skill set. Although working across sectors is desir-
able, increasing the capacity for HIA outside the discipline of public health will
have long-term implications for the development of HIA.
AUSTRALIA
This section reviews the Australian experience in addressing health in

EIA, in advancing HIA by using alternative methods, and in strengthening the
consideration of health equity in HIA.

Health in Environmental Impact Assessment
EIA was established in Australia in 1974 by the Environmental Protection

(Impact of Proposals) Act, which is applicable to national-level decisions and
includes provisions for assessing vectorborne diseases associated with the con-
struction of large dams (Australian Government 2009). In 1994, the National
Health and Medical Research Council—a research body tasked with improving
public health in Australia—published findings on health in EIA (NHMRC
1994). They found a lack of structures and processes for incorporating health in
EIA, inconsistent coverage of health in EIA because of gaps in EIA legislation,
and inadequate involvement of health agencies in the EIA process. The council
proposed integrating HIA into EIA and stated that “human health is affected by
social, psychological, economic, ecological, and physical factors” (NHMRC
1994, p. xii). It defined a framework for integrating health into EIA, specified
ways to access public-health expertise and to finance community involvement,
and identified methodologic issues to be addressed (Harris and Spickett 2011).
The Australian federal government established the enHealth Council, a na-
tional body with responsibility for implementing a National Environmental
Health Strategy and providing leadership on integrating health into EIA (Harris
and Spickett 2011). The council published guidelines for implementing HIA
(enHealth Council 2001) that promoted the integration of health into EIA, the
consideration of the social determinants of health, and the recognition of the
broader application of HIA beyond projects and into policy and program devel-
opment. Furthermore, the guidance emphasized the need to assess adverse and
beneficial health effects and overcome the previous tendencies in EIA to assess
only adverse effects. In 2005, however, an analysis found that legislative and
administrative frameworks and procedures needed for facilitating HIA imple-
mentation were still lacking (NPHP 2005). The responsibility for HIA was later
defined to be a matter of state and local jurisdiction, not a federal-government
responsibility.
At the state level, Tasmania introduced legislative requirements in 1996
for the conduct of HIA as part of the EIA process (Government of Tasmania
1994). That legislation was one of the first examples of requirements for the
consideration of health effects (in addition to environmental effects) to be for-
mally legislated. Mahoney (2009), however, suggested that the requirements
were due more to the configuration of the government department responsible
for public health and environmental management than to a calculated decision to
set priorities related to health. Queensland is the only other Australian state that
combines health and environmental effects, and it too has been successful in
addressing health in EIA (Mahoney 2009).
In 1998, Tasmania published a manual to guide local governments in the
execution of their public-health and environmental-health duties (Public and
Environmental Health Service 1998). It emphasized environmental risks to
health, the monitoring of those risks, and detailed risk-assessment methods.
However, HIA was ultimately impeded because of a lack of sufficient workforce

Appendix A 145
capacity. Later revisions of HIA procedures encouraged more efficient scoping

and earlier interactions between developers and appropriate government agen-
cies (Harris and Spickett 2011).
Health Impact Assessment Independent of

Environmental Impact Assessment
Around 2000, there was a move to promote HIA independently of EIA as

a way to influence healthy public policy (such as in the transportation and hous-
ing sectors) and to place an emphasis on stakeholder participation in the HIA
process and on the social determinants of health (Mahoney and Durham 2002).
A federal research-grant program supported that work, including communication
among sectors, tools development, and capacity-building. The grant program
was disbanded after a few years, but an effort in capacity-building for conduct-
ing HIAs of policies continued in two states. In New South Wales, the focus was
to build health-system capacity to implement HIA. In Victoria, the focus was on
local government planning systems.
Equity-Focused Health Impact Assessment
Equity-focused HIA and a framework for considering the differential dis-

tribution of impacts explicitly were also developed in Australia to support
Health In All Policies (Mahoney et al. 2004). The framework was tested in case
studies and succeeded in placing the focus of HIA on the equitable distribution
of health in the population (Simpson et al. 2005). New South Wales included
HIA in its strategy to reduce health inequity and funded HIA capacity-building,
and the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation of the Uni-
versity of New South Wales has conducted rapid equity-focused HIAs.
Advancing Health Impact Assessment in Australia
The development of HIA throughout Australia has been influenced by pri-

orities at the state and territory levels (Harris and Spickett 2011). For example,
Western Australia and the Northern Territory have active mining sectors; envi-
ronmental assessments of many of the mining activities are conducted, and HIA
is integrated into them. With support from the University of New South Wales,
the states of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria are
building capacity for and supporting the implementation of HIA as a tool for
healthy public policies through learning-by-doing programs (that is, programs
that emphasize learning through participation).
The Australian experience indicates that “system support and capacity-
building” may do more to promote HIA than legislating its use (Harris and
Spickett 2011). New South Wales, Western Australia, and South Australia do

not have any legislative requirements for HIA but have advanced HIA with
some support of the health sector and others across the government. Although
legislation requires HIA to be included in EIAs in Tasmania, there have been
difficulties in applying HIA within a regulatory process of a nonhealth agency,
including lack of sufficient workforce capacity and efficient procedures for
communicating between proponents and relevant agencies. Victoria has incorpo-
rated HIA into its Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 by systematically in-
vesting in the positioning of HIA in local government as a tool for healthy pub-
lic policies and by building capacity for HIA among public-health staff.
THAILAND
Over the last decade, Thailand has developed a comprehensive system for
HIA. The National Health System Reform (NHSR) was launched in 2000 and
has advocated for addressing health in policies in nonhealth sectors and for a
greater role for the public in decision-making. HIA was identified as a mecha-
nism for developing a healthier society by facilitating stakeholder involvement
and by including sound information in public policy-making (Phoolcharoen et
al. 2003).
Public policies to transform Thailand into an industrialized economy were
met with civil unrest and set the historical background for the move to increase
the public’s role in decision-making. The 1997 constitution created mechanisms
for participatory decision-making, resource allocation, decentralization, greater
accountability, and transparency. The NHSR process reflected the national ob-
jectives, and in 2001, an NHSR commission funded research to inform the Na-
tional Health Act and to develop HIA in Thailand. The first attempt to introduce
HIA into the EIA process was not successful. It was concluded that EIA would
need to be modified to allow for broader participation. Moreover, at that time,
knowledge of, experience in, and skills for HIA were lacking in Thailand. The
low level of capacity was identified as a threat to the credibility of HIA if it were
to develop as a formal approval mechanism. In 2002, the Ministry of Public
Health established a Division of Sanitation and Health Impact Assessment to
define HIA systems and to support healthy public policy, especially among local
governments. The focus changed in 2003 to HIA in healthy public policy as a
learning process, and this process was to be developed in parallel with obtaining
support for the concept of the NHSR and with development of a critical mass of
HIA knowledge and skill in the country.
In 2005, the National Economic and Social Advisory Council—which had
experience with implementing HIA in a variety of projects and policies—
submitted HIA recommendations to Thailand’s cabinet. The recommendations
were accepted, and the Ministry of Health was directed to implement them. A
clear mandate for HIA in Thailand was established as a way to stimulate greater
interest in developing healthy public policy. The 2007 federal constitution re-
quires EIA and HIA and states that a public hearing must take place to obtain

Appendix A 147
the opinion of interested parties and others who might be affected by a project or
activity and that a community has the right to sue any government agency that
does not comply (Thai Laws 2007). The National Health Act, also issued in
2007, includes the right of people to ask for and participate in an HIA of a pub-
lic policy, and it requires the NHSR Commission to develop HIA guidelines and
procedures (NHC Thailand 2007). The National Development Plan of 2007-
2011 includes provisions for “integration of health in the EIA system” and “ap-
plications of SEA…with health considerations in main sections and in spatial
planning” (NHC Thailand 2008).
Experience with implementing HIA continues to evolve. Some of the suc-
cesses include the integration of health assemblies with multistakeholder par-
ticipation into policy-making at a local level. HIAs have been used for healthy
agriculture policies at local and regional levels, industrial policies, and water
management. HIA credibility has been found to depend on who conducts the
assessment; HIAs led by a health department using participatory learning have
had better results than HIAs led by nongovernment organizations and local ex-
perts. HIA recommendations that require changes in existing business practices
have needed substantive analysis to support them. For example, HIAs evaluating
policies for the production of healthier foods tried to demonstrate the relative
health costs of current business practices compared with those of policy alterna-
tives and to develop measures that would influence consumer demand for
healthy foods (Elinder et al. 2003; Cole et al. 2007).
Some of the present challenges for Thailand are to define specific mecha-
nisms for public participation and for incorporating the results of the assessment
into policies; to develop rules, regulations, and guidelines for HIA in specific
sectors, such as agriculture and food production, that take into account sector
issues and business-management practices; to expand the knowledge base so
that the health burden of policies and methods can be recognized; and to identify
short-term and long-term effects of the policy.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
HIA initially developed in WHO in response to the need to control vector-

borne diseases resulting from water projects without using chemicals. In 1981,
the Panel of Experts on Environmental Management for Vector Control was
established to develop institutional frameworks for intersectoral and interagency
collaboration. The panel developed methods to forecast diseases in water-
management projects (Birley 1991). Further development of HIA occurred when
the World Commission on Dams, a multistakeholder commission, made recom-
mendations for the sustainability of dams and set good practice standards. The
commission expressed concern over health impacts (Colson 1971) and, in coop-
eration with WHO, included health assessments in its deliberations (WHO
2000a).

WHO’s Regional Office for Europe (EURO) supported training for the in-
clusion of health in EIAs beginning in the 1980s (Tiffen 1989; WHO 2000b).
Other WHO regional offices—such as the Regional Office for the Eastern Medi-
terranean (Hassan et al. 2005) and the Pan American Health Organization
(Weitzenfeld 1996)—prepared HIA guidelines that focused on addressing envi-
ronmental determinants of health; some of the guidelines have been widely used.
An HIA training package with guidance for government cross-sector policy-
making was issued in 1999 and implemented in several countries (WHO 2000b).
In 2003, an HIA Web site9 was established, and a special-themed issue of the
Bulletin of the World Health Organization was dedicated to HIA experience at
that time (Volume 81, Number 6).
Since the late 1990s, WHO’s focus on HIA has included applications in
industrialized countries. The focus on HIA broadened from incorporating health
into EIAs to developing healthy public policies. WHO EURO supported HIA in
specific sectors, including agriculture (Lock et al. 2003) and transportation
(Dora and Racioppi 2003). WHO EURO also developed a project to learn from
HIA experience and clarify basic concepts and definitions, principles, ap-
proaches, and methods used in HIA. A series of reviews and meetings were car-
ried out, and support for continued learning was provided through a network to
decision-makers. Those activities led to the publication of the Gothenburg con-
sensus paper (Diwan et al. 2000). Also, as previously discussed, a project on
HIA was developed by the Europe Healthy Cities Network (EU 2009).
The WHO experience with EIA and HIA for healthy public policy was
used to inform and influence the negotiations of the new SEA protocol to the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on EIAs (Dora
2004). The final text included a broad health perspective, placed health as a key
aspect of the SEA, and specified ways to include health (UNECE 2003). That
same broad perspective was successfully used in a project to support healthy
public policies, including the use of HIAs in Uganda, Jordan, and Thailand that
focus on agriculture, livestock, and water-management policies.10 WHO EURO
has also assisted several countries in its region in conducting HIAs of climate
change, and a few countries have developed national adaptation plans that in-
clude specific consideration of health (WHO 2008).
Tools for HIA oversight have recently been developed by WHO to be used
by multilateral development banks and recipient countries. Those tools support
the inclusion of health goals in development lending for all sectors of the econ-
omy (M. Pfeiffer and C. Dora, WHO, unpublished material, 2010), and they
support a decision by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to adopt safe-
guards for community health and safety. Integrating health into development
lending through the use of HIA has the potential to influence large public and
private-sector investments in developing countries, including natural-resource
extraction (such as oil, mining, and forestry), infrastructure, and tourism. WHO
9
See http://www.who.int/hia/en/.
10
See http://www.who.int/heli/pilots/en/.

Appendix A 149
is working with a few pilot countries on the development of governance mecha-

nisms in the extractive industry for healthy public policy by including HIA and
connecting health with national planning processes.
In 2008, the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) rec-
ommended that WHO support health-equity impact assessments of important
global, regional, and bilateral economic agreements and in all government poli-
cies, including finance, as a way to address health disparities. It was recom-
mended that member states of WHO redesign their health sectors to integrate a
focus on social determinants of health into relevant sectors (CSDH 2008). To
achieve that goal, WHO proposed that countries adopt and perform HIAs for
policies and projects and focus further on health equity. The CSDH also recom-
mended that data systems present information disaggregated by sex, socioeco-
nomic status, and other criteria to allow for the identification of disparities; it
warned that public participation does not necessarily ensure that equity issues
are addressed; and it called for capacity-building to assess the health-equity im-
pacts of major global, regional, and bilateral economic agreements and to moni-
tor social determinants of health and health equity.
MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS
Multilateral development banks provide financial support and advice for

economic and social activities in developing countries. They include the World
Bank and associated institutions—the African Development Bank, the Asian
Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
and the Inter-American Development Bank Group. The World Bank expects its
borrowers “to integrate selected environmental and social aspects into the identi-
fication, planning, appraisal, and implementation of the investment projects that
it supports” (Mercier 2003, p. 461). To facilitate compliance, the bank requires a
series of impact assessments, including assessments of projects that might have
effects on the environment, natural habitats, forests, safety of dams, pest man-
agement, indigenous peoples, involuntary resettlement, cultural property, and
international waterways and projects in disputed areas (World Bank 2011). Such
assessments are considered safeguards and were adopted gradually between
1998 and 2006. The assessment reports must be disclosed in the countries in
which the projects are expected to be implemented and on the World Bank
InfoShop Web site, and they are expected to be communicated internationally.
The World Bank does not have a safeguard for public or community health. It
has defined EIA to include the natural environment, human health, safety, and
social aspects; in 1996, it commissioned guidance for including health as part of
an EIA (Birley et al. 1997).
The Asian Development Bank has had a concern about the health conse-
quences of projects that it funds and commissioned guidelines in 1992 for the
HIA of development projects (Birley and Peralta 1992). The guidelines are brief

and have not been updated recently, but the bank has had a staff member who
has HIA expertise on its safeguards team for many years.
The IFC—the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank—lends to
private-sector investors primarily in developing countries for such projects as
the extractive industry or tourism. The IFC adopted safeguards for projects sub-
mitted for funding and developed a set of criteria for assessing potential impacts
on the environment, employment, occupational health, and safety.
In 2006, the IFC developed additional safeguards for public health after a
debate about the oversight of adverse health impacts of projects funded by IFC
that could possibly pose a risk to businesses and therefore to the IFC itself (IFC
2006). The new safeguards, referred to as performance standards, added a stan-
dard on community health and safety to several existing standards on occupa-
tional health and safety, and IFC produced guidelines and a benchmark for in-
dustry to help it meet the new standards (IFC 2007). In 2009, the IFC published
guidance for carrying out HIAs that covered potential health issues in large-
scale projects in developing countries in, for example, the extractive industry
(IFC 2009). That requirement is potentially beneficial for public health because
all projects for which the IFC is one of the co-financers will need to have the
community-health and safety-assessment performance standards included. Pri-
vate investment is a large fraction of the financial investment in developing
countries today.
In 2003, the Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EPFIs)—a group of
67 private banks, including some in developing countries—agreed that no loans
should be provided to applicants that would not or could not comply with social
and environmental policies and procedures modeled after the environmental
standards of the World Bank and the social policies of the IFC. The EPFIs have
only recently been trained to implement the new IFC performance standards,
and there is no independent mechanism for assessing compliance or quality as-
surance in the implementation of the standards. A network of professionals are
engaged in the implementation of the performance standards in those banks in
an effort to facilitate learning from experience. The Equator Principles have be-
come the voluntary standards for private banks in assessing development pro-
jects. Those measures have the potential to include health and other criteria in
private-sector lending. Accountability mechanisms will need to be built into the
system at some point and could provide the incentive for better performance, as
shareholders and other interested groups identify the actual contributions of pri-
vate bank lending to promoting health and other development criteria.
UNITED STATES
The first use of a process identified as HIA in the United States occurred
in 1999 in the context of a policy to increase the minimum wage for San Fran-
cisco contractors and leaseholders (Bhatia and Katz 2001). That use of HIA con-
tributed to the passage of an ordinance and an increase in the minimum wage

Appendix A 151
(Dannenberg et al. 2008). The early use of HIA by a U.S. government agency
was focused on the integration of public-health agency expertise into local land-
use planning decisions principally in the San Francisco Bay area of California.
The use of HIA then began spreading to other parts of the country as an inde-
pendent practice with some expansion of the breadth of policy sectors and more
recently as an enhancement of the health analysis conducted in the state and
federal systems for EIA. In 2010, there were a growing number of examples of
the use of HIA in the United States in a wide variety of agencies at the local,
state, and national levels.
Local Communities
The use of HIA in local communities has spread substantially over the
last decade. Surveys in 2010 show HIA being used in a number of large metro-
politan areas and medium-size communities for a variety of actions (Dannenberg
et al. 2008; UCLA HIA-CLIC 2011). HIA of policies, projects, and programs in
local communities has been organized or sponsored by local public-health agen-
cies, nonprofit organizations, planning agencies, and academic institutions.
For example, several HIAs focus on individual development projects or com-
munity plans (Farhang and Bhatia 2007; Heller et al. 2009; Human Impact Part-
ners 2009) whereas the BeltLine HIA evaluated a regional redevelopment and
transportation project in the greater Atlanta metropolitan area (Ross 2007).
Land-use, housing, and transportation planning have been more common foci of
HIA than policies or programs in the labor, education, or social-services sectors.
In the transportation context, current HIA work includes analysis of transporta-
tion infrastructure proposals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Houston Ur-
ban Corridor, and the Los Angeles area and a proposed road-pricing policy in
San Francisco (UCLA PH 2011; ISAIAH 2011; SFDPH 2011; UCLA HIA-
CLIC 2011).
HIA has also been used to gauge the health impacts of proposed changes
in local zoning ordinances. The Eastern Neighborhoods Community Health Im-
pact Assessment, completed in 2006, analyzed three rezoning plans for former
industrial neighborhoods and focused on issues of displacement and environ-
mental quality (Corburn and Bhatia 2007; Farhang et al. 2008). Another recent
example is from the city of Baltimore, where an HIA found that the city’s pro-
posed zoning code would have several implications for health. The HIA team
noted that “if implemented, the draft new code could substantially increase the
percentage of residents who live in neighborhoods that allow mixed use. This
has the potential to increase residents’ physical activity levels as well as access
to healthy food. [It could also] dramatically increase the percentage of neighbor-
hoods that allow urban gardens and farmers markets. This has the potential to
increase residents’ access to healthy food if these uses were developed” (Thorn-
ton et al. 2010, p. 1-3). The HIA made several recommendations for modifying
the zoning code to promote health.

Although public-health agencies in several localities—including Denver,

Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and the North Slope Borough in
Alaska—have been either leaders or participants in HIA initiatives, it is less
common for public-health agencies to have incorporated HIA as a routine day-
to-day institutional practice. Over the last decade, however, the use of HIA in
San Francisco has matured to become an integral part of the work of the De-
partment of Public Health with dedicated public funding and staff since 2002.
HIA tools are now routinely applied in partnership with other city agencies, in-
cluding planning and redevelopment agencies, to evaluate such proposals as
neighborhood and community plans. The San Francisco Department of Public
Health has established a routine role of providing oversight of environmental
health analysis in EIAs implemented under the California Environmental Qual-
ity Act. It has also been involved in the institutionalization of HIA practice
through training and evaluation partnerships with the University of California,
Berkley and research initiatives to develop analytic tools and approaches to ad-
dress methodologic gaps. Several HIAs conducted by the San Francisco De-
partment of Public Health have been implemented in close partnership with or
under the oversight of nongovernment organizations—a fact that may be instru-
mental in the continuing community demand for HIA (Corburn 2009). Notably,
community demand is leading to a broadening of the scope of practice beyond
physical planning to policies related to labor rights and working conditions.
States
In 2006, Washington became the first state to pass legislation focused on

enabling preparation of health impact reviews. A health impact review has been
defined as a “review of a legislative or budgetary proposal…that determines the
extent to which the proposal improves or exacerbates health disparities” (Re-
vised Washington Statutes 43.20.015). The state legislature made formal find-
ings that women and people of color experience important disparities compared
with men and the general population and that the disparities affect health in
many ways. The state also expressed an intent “to create the healthiest state in
the nation.” The law established a mechanism under the purview of the State
Board of Health to undertake health impact reviews on the request of a state
legislator or the governor (Revised Washington Statutes 43.20.285). Although
some reviews have been requested (WA SBOH 2007a,b; 2008a,b,c; 2009,
2010), state budget difficulties have resulted in diminished capacity to conduct
reviews.
Massachusetts has also passed legislation to support HIA, and bills to sup-
port HIA have been proposed in California, Maryland, Minnesota, and West
Virginia. Most of the bills would provide for an expanded role for state health
agencies in HIA and related planning efforts. However, even without the incen-
tive of legislation, some state health departments have become more engaged in
HIA over the last few years. To date, state-level administrative actions include

Appendix A 153
the establishment of interagency working groups and pilot programs and techni-
cal assistance to agencies that are developing regulations that may affect public
health. For example, the Hawaii Department of Agriculture is partnering with
the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and the Kohala Center—a
nonprofit organization focused on community education, research, and conser-
vation—to develop an HIA that will inform the development of a Hawaii
County Agriculture Development Plan. The plan is being developed in the wake
of the demise of the sugar plantations that used to dominate the agricultural
economy on the “big island” of Hawaii and the disappearance of many smaller
agricultural producers (UCLA HIA-CLIC 2011). In Alaska, the Department of
Health and Social Services has established an HIA program to provide technical
assistance to other agencies involved in conducting integrated environmental
and health impact assessments (Alaska HSS 2011).
In California, the Department of Public Health recently became the first
state agency to publish an official guidance document on HIA (Bhatia 2010). In
2009, the California Air Resources Board, in partnership with California De-
partment of Public Health, initiated an HIA of proposed cap-and-trade regula-
tions required to be promulgated under the California 2006 Global Warming
Solutions Act. The act directed the California Air Resources Board to adopt
regulations that avoid, to the extent feasible, disproportionate impacts on low-
income communities (California State Health and Safety Code, Division 25.5,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions, § 38562(b) (2)). The act also mandated
that, in the development of the regulations, consideration be given to overall
societal benefits, including public health. A second phase of the HIA was re-
cently initiated to expand the scope of the analysis with external funding and
support by the private nonprofit Public Health Institute. Other state health de-
partments engaged in HIA include those of Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington,
Massachusetts, and Alaska (Cagle 2010; WI DPH 2010; ANTHC 2011; Oregon
Government 2011).
Federal Government
The use of HIA in decision-making at the level of the federal government

has been largely, although not exclusively, in the context of implementing
NEPA. Federal agencies in the executive branch of government have been, in
theory, required to assess the health effects of proposed federal actions under
NEPA since its passage in 1969 (42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4347).11 The language in
NEPA that embodies the threshold for the preparation of an environmental im-
pact statement (EIS) uses the phrase “the quality of the human environment”
(Congressional Record, Senate, P. 40416, December 20, 1969) because the con-
gressional sponsors intended to demonstrate that “an environmental policy is a
11
There are some gaps in coverage under the statute, most notably for these purposes
the pollution-control regulatory activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

policy for the people. Its primary concern is with man and his future” (Congres-
sional Record, Senate, p. 40416, December 20, 1969). Indeed, the statutory pur-
pose of NEPA includes promoting the “health and welfare of man” (42 U.S.C. §
4321; emphasis added), and the national environmental policy—whose articula-
tion and implementation were the major purpose of the act—includes assurance
that all Americans are entitled to “safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically
and culturally pleasing surroundings” (42 U.S.C. § 4331) and the attainment of
the “widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk
to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences” (42
U.S.C. § 4331; emphasis added).
Similarly, the regulations implementing the procedural provisions of
NEPA include health as an important focus of analysis.12 The direct, indirect,
and cumulative health effects of proposed federal actions are to be analyzed un-
der NEPA (40 C.F.R. § 1508.8), and the degree to which a proposed action af-
fects public health or safety is one of the criteria for determining whether prepa-
ration of an EIS is required (40 C.F.R. § 1508.27). Furthermore, Congress
directed the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
to review and comment in writing on the analysis of the impacts of proposed
actions. EPA was asked to refer any proposed legislation, action, or regulation
that fell under the auspices of NEPA and that was determined to be “unsatisfac-
tory from the standpoint of public health or welfare or environmental quality”
(42 U.S.C. § 7609 [1970]) to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
which is the environmental agency in the executive office of the president.
From a procedural perspective, there is no significant difference between
the steps in HIA and EIA, at least as practiced under the regulations implement-
ing NEPA. Both processes begin with the identification of proposed actions that
should go through the process, as opposed to proposed actions that are likely to
cause no or de minimis impacts. In HIA, this step is called screening (described
in detail in Chapter 3). Under NEPA, agencies are required to publish proce-
dures that provide categories of actions that an agency has determined generally
require the preparation of EISs and environmental assessments and actions that
are excluded from written documentation.
The next step for both processes is a period of scoping to identify impor-
tant issues, interested parties, and work that needs to be done to prepare a credi-
ble analysis. The analysis itself is subject to public review and input and in-
cludes mitigation measures and alternative ways of achieving the goal. Under
NEPA, agencies are required to disclose their decision about a proposed action
that is subject to an EIS in a “record of decision” (40 C.F.R. § 1505.2). HIA
12
Government-wide NEPA regulations binding on all executive branch agencies were
promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality, an agency established by Con-
gress under NEPA in 1979 to, among other things, advise the president on environmental
matters and oversee implementation of NEPA (40 C.F.R. §§ 1500-1508). The statute,
regulations, and other useful reference material can be found at www.nepa.gov.

Appendix A 155
does not have codified requirements, but the intent is to have HIA considered in
the course of decision-making.
Despite the clear emphasis on analysis of human health impacts and con-
cern for public health as a primary element of the quality of the human environ-
ment, several factors have led to a historical tendency to minimize the impor-
tance of human health effects in the context of NEPA analysis. Litigation has
had a major influence on the shape, development, and perception of NEPA law,
and specific claims related to human health were seldom a major early focus.
Some confusion stemmed from several early NEPA cases that held that social
and economic effects themselves did not trigger the requirement to prepare an
EIS (although health effects were not the subjects of claims in the cases). For
example, residents living near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had
fears related to the restart of the plant after a partial core meltdown. A decision
was made by the U.S. Supreme Court that the fears did not need to be analyzed
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under NEPA, and this was interpreted
by some to mean that health effects were not subject to challenge under NEPA.
That interpretation is wrong; indeed, all members of the U.S. Supreme Court
concurred in the statement and were of the opinion that “all the parties agree that
effects on human health can be cognizable under NEPA, and that human health
may include psychological health” (Metropolitan Edison v. People Against Nu-
clear Energy, 460 U.S. 766, 771 [1983]).
Another factor that has led to the minimization of human health effects
under NEPA is that the federal agencies that have been the focal point of activ-
ist, legal, and legislative attention in the NEPA context tend to be agencies that
traditionally have not had internal expertise in matters of public health (for ex-
ample, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Forest Service, and the Federal
Highway Administration). In contrast, federal agencies whose mission is fo-
cused on health—such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC)—have seldom been the focus of attention from a NEPA perspective.
Professional and functional collaboration between the two sets of federal institu-
tions in the context of NEPA has, until quite recently, been unknown.
The confusion generated by misinterpretations of case law, the separation
of agency cultures and professional exchanges, and a lack of vigorous advocacy
have resulted for several decades in unintended sidelining (although not com-
plete omission) of analysis of health effects in the context of the NEPA process,
which includes the analytic and procedural EIA processes under NEPA. The
situation began to change as the concept of HIA was introduced into federal
agencies. Native Alaskan villagers had long-standing concerns about the impact
of oil and gas leasing on subsistence hunting and fishing and the associated
health, social, and cultural impacts. Their concerns began to receive attention
from federal agencies when work was initiated on behalf of Native Alaskans to
introduce the concept of HIA into those agencies (see Box 3-3 in Chapter 3). It
was shown that HIA was modeled after and easily integrated into EIA under
NEPA, and professional assistance was provided to interested parties. The result
was that a health-effects analysis was included in several NEPA documents for

oil and gas leasing programs and lease sales (BLM 2007; MMS 2007a,b; EPA
2009). Publication of the documents sparked attention and interest in other
agencies. For example, the CEQ hosted a presentation about HIA for federal
agency personnel who work on the implementation of NEPA (H. Greczmiel,
Council on Environmental Quality, Washington, D.C., personal communication,
2010). EPA recently supported a model scoping exercise for HIA of future port
expansion projects in Los Angeles, which generally also require environmental
review (EPA 2010). CDC and EPA signed a memorandum of understanding in
2002 to collaborate and strengthen the understanding of linkages between pro-
posed changes in the built and natural environment and potential health out-
comes, a step that should be of benefit to many agencies in the context of the
NEPA process.
Public-interest organizations have also become more aware of HIA and
have been advocating, with mixed success, its inclusion into a wider array of
NEPA analyses. The Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, now
advocates the inclusion of a comprehensive assessment of potential human
health impacts in EISs that analyze the impacts of oil and gas exploration and
production on federal lands (Mall et al. 2007). In another example, a broad coa-
lition of community interests and government representatives has asked that an
HIA be conducted on the expansion of the I-710 freeway in Los Angeles
County—a project undergoing environmental review under NEPA and the Cali-
fornia Environmental Quality Act (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transpor-
tation Authority 2010).
Other federal authorities also call for an assessment of health risks. Execu-
tive Order 12898 (Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority
Populations and Low-Income Populations) reinforces the inclusion of a system-
atic analysis of health issues in NEPA documents by instituting a requirement
that agencies recognize and address the “disproportionately high and adverse
human health or environmental effects” of federal actions on low-income and
ethnic-minority populations (EO 12898, 59 Fed. Reg. 7629 (Feb. 16, 1994)). In
essence, that executive order creates a two-step requirement in which agencies
must first identify potential adverse health effects of agency actions and then
determine whether the effects are likely to affect low-income or minority popu-
lations disproportionately. The order thus reinforces the basic NEPA require-
ments regarding health but further recognizes that in some cases ethnic-minority
and low-income populations may be more vulnerable to adverse health effects of
agency decision-making.
The CEQ (1997, p. 9) issued detailed guidance on the implementation of
Executive Order 12898 and in it advised agencies to
consider relevant public health data and industry data concerning the po-
tential for multiple or cumulative exposures to human health or environ-
mental hazards in the affected population and historical patterns of expo-
sure to environmental hazards, to the extent such information is
reasonably available. For example, data may suggest there are dispropor-

Appendix A 157
tionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on a mi-

nority population, low-income population or Indian tribe from the agency
action. Agencies should consider these multiple, or cumulative effects,
even if certain effects are not within the control or subject to the discretion
of the agency proposing the action.
It should be noted that agencies under NEPA are required to analyze effects,
whether they are within the control and responsibility of the proponent agency
or not. The issue of what agencies can require outside applicants to carry out in
the way of mitigation measures is less clear if a mitigation measure in question
involves actions arguably outside an agency’s jurisdiction (Cape May Greene,
Inc. v. Warren, 698 F.2d 179 (ed Cir. 1983)). Furthermore, although NEPA re-
quires the analysis of mitigation measures, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled
that NEPA does not require agencies to adopt any particular mitigation measures
(Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U.S.332 (1989)).
Executive Order 13045 created similar requirements for agencies to iden-
tify and address actions that could have disproportionate effects on children:
each federal agency “(a) shall make it a high priority to identify and assess envi-
ronmental health risks and safety risks that may disproportionately affect chil-
dren; and (b) shall ensure that its policies, program activities, and standards ad-
dress disproportionate risks to children that result from environmental health
risks or safety risks”(EO 13045, 62 Fed. Reg. 19883 [April 23, 1997]).
Health Impact Assessment Independent of the

National Environmental Policy Act
The practice of HIA has also been used for federal decision-making out-
side the NEPA process. For example, one HIA analyzed the effects of the
Healthy Families Act in 2008, and legislation was proposed that mandated 7
sick days a year for businesses that have more than 15 employees (Bhatia et al.
2008). The HIA and additional research for similar legislation in Massachusetts
found potentially substantial health benefits and cost savings resulting from such
legislation. Those HIAs were considered by members of Congress when the
proposed legislation was discussed.
Another example is a rapid HIA that was prepared as a demonstration pro-
ject for the 2002 Federal Farm Bill by the School of Public Health HIA Project
at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (UCLA PH 2004). The
analysis identified major pathways through which the bill could affect health
and focused on two of them (dietary consumption and air pollution). Data limi-
tations prevented analysis of the other three pathways (food safety, rural income
and quality of life, and environmental degradation).
Other recent developments set the stage for further consideration of HIA
at the federal level. First, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-114)
calls for a National Council on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public

Health. Established by President Obama in June 2010 (EO 13544 [June 10,
2010]), the council is composed of cabinet-level and other senior administration
officials in both health and nonhealth agencies and is chaired by the U.S. sur-
geon general. The council’s mission is to examine the interplay of factors that
affect public health. Among provisions laid out by the council’s framework for
the National Prevention Strategy is a call for a cohesive federal response to pre-
vention, for a reduction of health disparities, and for support of healthy physical
and social environments (NPHPPHC 2010). This focus, with requirements for
annual reports from the council, will help to sustain attention to the multiple
determinants of health and related improvement opportunities, such as HIA.
Second, the Healthy People 2020 program of the U.S. Department of Health and
Social Services establishes national goals and objectives for addressing the ma-
jor health challenges in the United States.13 The current version of the program
includes an expanded focus on the social determinants of health, and the Secre-
tary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Preven-
tion Objectives for 2020 discusses the use of HIA to achieve the program’s ob-
jectives. Third, the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity issued a
report to President Obama in May 2010. The report encourages communities to
consider the impacts of built-environment policies and regulations on human
health and to consider integrating HIA into local decision-making processes
(White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity 2010).
Academic Institutions
Several academic institutions have helped to advance HIA. The University

of California, Berkeley has offered a master’s-level course in HIA. The course is
designed as project-based learning, and students complete full-scale HIAs of
contemporary decisions of local, regional, or state significance. In several cases,
the HIAs produced by students in the course have been used by local community
organizations or public agencies to inform decision-making (UCB HIA 2011).
The student HIAs have both demonstrated the innovative use of research meth-
ods that have been replicated by other practitioners and identified new method-
ologic questions for practitioners. In some cases, student HIAs have informed
government-agency-led HIAs or other health analyses on the same subject (for
example, the California Air Resources Board Cap and Trade Regulations HIA).
Other core components of the academic practice at Berkley have provided tech-
nical assistance to local health agencies that want to conduct HIAs, develop re-
search methods that can be used in HIAs, and mentor graduate-student research
and evaluation in the HIA field.
Another example of intensive involvement in HIA in an academic setting
is the Health Impact Assessment Project at UCLA. The project began in 2001
with an assessment of the potential avenues for the development of HIA, either
13
See http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/default.aspx.

Appendix A 159
as part of or parallel to EIA, with the identification of specific protocols and

methods that could be easily and productively adapted from EIA and other fields
for use in HIA and with the development of prototype HIAs of policies at fed-
eral, state, and local levels (UCLA PH 2011). Since then, the UCLA HIA pro-
ject has continued to produce demonstration HIAs—HIAs that are produced to
demonstrate what an HIA would look like but that are not submitted to decision-
makers—across a broad spectrum of policy sectors, including proposed agricul-
ture, education, labor, and planning policies. Collaborating with CDC, the
American Planning Association, and Human Impact Partners, the UCLA HIA
team has provided HIA training workshops for public agencies and nonprofit
organizations. With the aim of lowering the technical barriers to HIA and dis-
seminating HIA practice, they have also developed the HIA Clearinghouse
Learning and Information Center (UCLA HIA-CLIC 2011), which includes an
archive of completed HIAs in the United States, an extensive explanation of
HIA methods, and background literature.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
Indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada share a number of

factors: they enjoy a close relationship to and a continuing reliance on natural
resources for food and subsistence, they have been subject to increased exposure
to environmental pollution, they are in the midst of extensive sociocultural
change and the strain that it entails, and they experience higher mortality and
disease incidence than the general U.S. population (Williams 2010). Those fac-
tors suggest that HIA may be an important approach for indigenous peoples.
Outside the United States, there have been cases in which non-Western systems
of knowledge have been incorporated into HIA, and indigenous peoples and
traditional ways of thinking have played an active role in the HIA process. There
are both similarities and differences between indigenous peoples’ approaches to
knowledge and Western impact assessment. The following are some examples
of how indigenous peoples around the world have been involved in or used HIA.
 New Zealand. In 2005, the Public Health Advisory Committee issued

guidance stating that new policies should be appraised for their attention to the
principles of the Treaty of Waitangi: partnership, participation, and protection
and consequent effects on the health and well-being of Māori Whānau families
and communities (PHAC 2005). In 2007, the Ministry of Health published an
HIA guide specifically to support Māori health and well-being and to reduce
disparities in health (MOH 2007).
 Australia. In New South Wales, “health is defined as not just the physical
well-being of the individual but the social, emotional and cultural well-being of
the whole community” (NSW DH 2007, p. 5). The government requires agencies
to submit aboriginal health impact statements with new health-policy proposals for
major health strategies and programs and with new health-policy evaluations

(NSW DH 2007). The Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association (AIDA) used

HIA to examine critically and refine a sensitive and controversial response from
the national government regarding child protection in aboriginal communities in
the Northern Territories (AIDA/CHETRE 2010). AIDA/CHETRE (2010) stated
that, in addition to drawing on a wide array of expertise and literature, the HIA
sought to include the aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples’ voices, experi-
ences, and knowledge to produce a document meaningful to all stakeholders in-
volved.
 Thailand. The WHO definition of health was augmented with the con-
cept of spiritual health (Phoolcharoen et al. 2003).
 Canada: The Canadian Handbook on HIA places great premium on
aboriginal health and traditional knowledge (Health Canada 2004a,b,c,d).
The People Assessing Their Health (PATH) process can include commu-
nity HIA and has been used in rural communities in Canada (and in rural and
tribal communities in India). It is an inclusive approach that focuses on enabling
members of a community to examine a proposal and to present their views to
decision-makers. It has been used to examine tourism initiatives and changes in
services. One of its main aims is to develop community skills and confidence,
and reviews of the process have reported favorable comments from participants
(Eaton et al. 2009; Cameron et al. 2011). Eaton et al. (2009) and Cameron et al.
(2011) note that it is not always clear how much influence the community HIA
has on the decision process. The lack of certainty about effects is shared with
other participation methods that are outside the formal decision-making process.
An account of an integrated impact assessment in Alberta shows how
understanding and insight of First Nation Peoples was integral to the assessment
(Orenstein et al. 2010). Community advisers were hired as part of the integrated
impact assessment team. They were able to spend time with the local
community, to show respect to and learn from the elders, and to act as a conduit
between the external consultants, the elders, and the wider community. The
integrated impact assessment results were reported in a summary document that
was also published in Cree, the language of the indigenous community. The
summary document was based on a question-and-answer format, and it
responded to questions that had been raised in consultation with the elders and
the wider community.
Despite the examples described and with reference to Canada,

Kwiatkowski (2011) states that indigenous communities are rarely engaged in
impact assessments undertaken by academe, industry, or government officials.
Although tribal environmental policy acts have been enacted by several tribes in
the United States and may provide a mechanism for including HIA, it appears
that today Alaska is the only state in which American Indian tribes have con-
ducted HIA work. In Alaska, tribal organizations, tribes, and municipal govern-
ments have worked within the federal EIS process to pioneer the use of HIA

Appendix A 161
(Wernham 2007; Bhatia and Wernham 2008). Tribal organizations and the fed-
eral agencies leading EISs have worked together to integrate health into the
EISs. It is becoming part of accepted practice in Alaska. There are several EISs
for which HIAs are planned or in progress, and a working group involving tribal
organizations, municipal and state health-department representatives, and fed-
eral agencies is developing guidance for HIA in Alaska (Wernham 2009).
PRIVATE SECTOR
Large lending institutions have played a central role in driving HIA in the
private sector, but other large corporations are also increasingly adopting stan-
dards for HIA in project planning, particularly for natural-resources develop-
ment. Several multinational oil companies have developed internal corporate
standards for HIA or for environmental, social, and health impact assessment
(IPIECA/OGP 2007, ICMM 2010; Chevron 2011). Trade associations—
including the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation As-
sociation and the International Council on Mining and Metals—have also re-
cently developed guides for HIA (IPIECA/OGP 2005; ICMM 2010). The in-
crease in use of HIA by large industries is undoubtedly related to emerging
lending standards, which were discussed above. A business case for HIA has
also been described and includes following ethical and sustainable development
principles, obtaining a social license to operate, ensuring a healthy workforce,
reducing conflict in and among local governments and communities, and man-
aging risk (Birley 2005).
Little is known regarding industry standards and practices related to public
disclosure and dissemination of HIA results. Committee members have heard of
the progress or completion of private-sector HIAs in the United States and inter-
nationally, but much of this work is not available through internet searches or on
request from the consultants who led the HIAs. The reports appear to remain
confidential documents used for planning purposes by a corporation or part of
the loan application and verification process. Some corporations may voluntarily
make their HIA reports public, but they are generally not required to do so under
U.S. law. Consequently, it is difficult to assess the amount of HIA activity or the
impact that these HIAs are having on private-sector decisions.
LESSONS LEARNED
Review of the international HIA experience and the current status of HIA
in the United States assisted the committee in its task of developing a framework
and guidance for HIA in the United States. As a result of its review, the commit-
tee made several observations, noted below, that shaped its conclusions and rec-
ommendations that are provided in the body of its report.

International Experience
 Legislation that has made HIA a formal requirement has played a key
role in advancing HIA practice and making it part of the approval mechanism in
many countries. A lack of such requirements has often led to uneven applica-
tion; as political views have changed, HIA has been discontinued, or resources
for conducting it have been reduced as was the case in Canada.
 A legal requirement, however, is not necessarily sufficient for success-
ful implementation of HIA. Examples from Thailand, Québec, and the EU point
to the importance of establishing mechanisms for generating knowledge about
the health implications of sector policies and for transferring that knowledge to
the sectors. Learning about health, its determinants, and policies that can protect
health is central to the acceptance and effective use of HIA.
 Standards or minimum requirements for conducting HIA are important
for its advancement and inclusion in decision-making. Lack of guidance has
sometimes led to minimal health analyses, especially when HIA has been incor-
porated into EIA, SEA, or other integrated assessment frameworks.
 The international experience demonstrates that having adequate capac-
ity for conducting HIA (expertise and resources) is essential for its success and
credibility. The European experience highlights the vital role of capacity-
building in the educational system. The EU distributes grants to enable research
on HIA methods, and England and Wales have developed courses in public-
health departments and universities to help to build the professional foundation
for implementing HIA in public and private sectors. Furthermore, centers of
excellence and trusted institutions in various countries have played an important
role in capacity-building by developing evidence, tools, and guidance that takes
into account the business practices of specific sectors.
 Clarity on the allocation of resources for HIA and identification of the
entity that will cover the cost is key. In many countries, such as Finland, the
responsibility for HIA was passed to communities without the necessary clarity
about how to fund it.
 Communication between various fields of expertise has proved impor-
tant for the successful implementation of the HIA process. For example, Austra-
lia’s experience demonstrates the importance of having staff in such sectors as
fisheries, housing, and transportation work closely with health authorities.
Chronically understaffed departments, however, have made such interchanges
challenging. The international experience demonstrates that the typical lack of
professional interchange between departments that have health expertise and
departments that are actively engaged in promulgating policies, programs, and
projects is a serious impediment to effective implementation of HIA.
 The needs of native peoples deserve special attention in the context of
HIA. The health of those populations has generally been affected in ways that
are not recognized by most decision-makers, and their capacity to engage with
health professionals is often low. A high percentage of native peoples experi-

Appendix A 163
ence a subsistence lifestyle and are substantially affected by development that

harms the plants and animals on which they depend for daily living. Further-
more, for at least some native peoples, health is defined broadly—“as the social,
emotional and cultural well-being of the whole community” (NSWDH 2007,
p. 5).
 Although some form of HIA is increasingly prevalent in some parts of
the private sector, the lack of transparency in the process makes it impossible to
evaluate their professional integrity and credibility.
Development of Health Impact Assessment in the United States
 The increased use of HIA in some local communities and states in the
United States indicates that more value is being placed on it. Demand for HIA
initially has come from grassroots activities, and growth of the practice in the
medium term will depend somewhat on constituent demand.
 Until recently, the analysis of health impacts in the United States has
not been consistently considered in federal polices despite the passage of legisla-
tion by Congress, an interpretation by the Supreme Court affirming that health
impacts are cognizable under NEPA, and executive orders, regulations, and
guidance promulgated by the executive branch that call for analysis of health
impacts. Although there are many reasons why the analysis of health impacts
has not been a major concern, information, education, and experience related to
the integration of HIA into NEPA analysis is beginning to increase.
 As discussed in the context of NEPA, the mere promulgation of a re-
quirement to take health impacts into account is not a sufficient basis for the
implementation of HIA. As indicated by the international experience, require-
ments must be specific about when HIA is required and about the standards un-
der which it should be conducted.
 A number of policies and programs, as a matter of law, fall outside
NEPA. They range from policies on school nutrition to congressional legisla-
tion. Thus, relying on NEPA and EIA laws applicable at state and municipal
levels is inadequate to ensure analysis of all important health impacts in all pol-
icy sectors.
 There has been no organized U.S. effort to educate those who could
benefit from the wider use of HIA about its value, availability, and capabilities.
The historical failure to include health analysis uniformly as a part of mandated
EIA may obscure the value of HIA. Communication tools to educate diverse
groups of potential users of HIA have not been well developed, and the dissemi-
nation of basic materials has been primarily opportunistic rather than compre-
hensive. In addition, a registry that could provide valuable information on
groups that have HIA experience or that can provide advice on the costs, time-
frames, and sources of specialized expertise has not been created.

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Appendix B
Biographic Information on the

Richard J. Jackson (Chair) is a professor and chair of environmental health

sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has worked exten-
sively on the impact of the environment on public health, and over the last dec-
ade much of his work has focused on how the built environment affects health.
In 2004, he was co-author of Urban Sprawl and Public Health. Dr. Jackson is
currently working on policy analyses of environmental impacts on health, from
chemical body burdens to climate change to urban design. In addition, he is
evaluating the effects of farming, education, housing, and transportation policies
on health. Dr. Jackson chaired the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee
on Environmental Health and recently served on the Board of Directors of the
American Institute of Architects. He serves on the editorial boards of the Ameri-
can Journal of Industrial Medicine, Environmental Research, and Public Health
Reports. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environ-
mental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine and of the National Research
Council Committee on “Sustainable” Products and Services. Dr. Jackson earned
his MD from the University of California, San Francisco.
Dinah Bear is an attorney at law in Washington, DC, and previously served for
over 25 years on the president’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). She
joined CEQ as deputy general counsel in 1981, was appointed general counsel in
January 1983, and served in that capacity until October 1993. She resumed that
position in January 1995 and was with CEQ until her retirement from govern-
ment at the end of 2007. At CEQ, she was responsible for interpreting the legal
requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and assisted in
overseeing the implementation of NEPA throughout the executive branch. Ms.
Bear currently serves on the board of Defenders of Wildlife; Humane Borders, a
faith-based organization based in Tucson, Arizona; and the Mt. Graham Coali-
tion, and is an adviser to the Center for International Environmental Law. Ms.
178

Appendix B 179
Bear earned her J.D. from McGeorge School of Law and has been admitted to
practice by the District of Columbia Bar, the State Bar of California, and the
U.S. Supreme Court. She has chaired the American Bar Association’s Standing
Committee on Environmental Law and the District of Columbia Bar Associa-
tion’s Section on Environment and Natural Resources. She has received the
award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy from
the American Bar Association.
Rajiv Bhatia is director of occupational and environmental health for the San
Francisco Department of Public Health and holds a clinical appointment at the
University of California, San Francisco. He is responsible for developing, im-
plementing, and evaluating environmental health policy in San Francisco. Under
Dr. Bhatia’s leadership, the Department of Public Health has expanded envi-
ronmental-health practice to ensure safe and adequate housing, to support
worker health rights, to enhance connections between regional agriculture and
urban consumers, and to integrate public health and urban planning. As part of
those initiatives, the department is developing and evaluating tools for health
impact assessment (HIA) and has conducted HIA on local land-use and trans-
portation plans and projects, local and state workplace and employment regula-
tions, regional maritime-port development proposals, and California state cli-
mate-change mitigation strategies. Dr. Bhatia developed and currently teaches a
graduate course on HIA at the University of California, Berkeley and regularly
conducts HIA training for peers; federal, state, and local public institutions; and
community organizations. He is a co-founder and scientific director of the non-
profit Human Impact Partners, which conducts HIA and HIA training and facili-
tation for other organizations. Dr. Bhatia was a founding member of the Health
and Social Justice Team for the National Association of County and City Health
Officials and is a former board member of the Pesticide Action Network and the
Asian Pacific Environmental Network. Dr. Bhatia earned an MD from Stanford
University and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
Scott B. Cantor is a professor in the Section of Health Services Research in the

Department of Biostatistics of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
Center. He also holds adjunct-professor positions in The University of Texas
Health Science Center in the Houston School of Public Health and Rice Univer-
sity, and he is a faculty member for the Program in Biomathematics and Biostatis-
tics of The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Hous-
ton. Dr. Cantor’s research focuses on the theoretical issues concerning cost-
effectiveness analysis and diagnostic testing and on clinical issues in cancer pre-
vention, particularly prostatic-cancer screening and cervical-precancer diagnosis.
He is a past president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and is a mem-
ber of the Decision Analysis Society, the Society for Judgment and Decision Mak-
ing, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Dr.
Cantor earned a PhD in decision sciences from Harvard University.

Ben Cave is chief executive of Ben Cave Associates. He has specialized in

health and social impact assessment for the last 13 years. His work has two
broad themes. The first addresses health in statutory assessments. On a policy
level, he advises the World Health Organization and the UK Department of
Health on requirements and methods for strategic environmental assessment. On
a project level, he leads health impact assessments in conjunction with environ-
mental assessments in a wide variety of sectors. The second major theme of his
work is to improve the consideration of health issues in the wider planning proc-
ess and the consideration of environmental issues by health stakeholders. Mr.
Cave is associated with several professional organizations and is the chair of the
Health Section of the International Association for Impact Assessment and an
associate member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assess-
ment. He earned an MSc in health-promotion sciences from the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Ana V. Diez Roux is a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for
Social Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Public Health, a
research professor in the Survey Research Center in the Institute for Social Re-
search, and director of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars
Program at the University of Michigan. Dr. Diez Roux has been an international
leader in the investigation of the social determinants of health, the application of
multilevel analysis in health research, and the study of neighborhood health ef-
fects. Her research includes social epidemiology and health disparities, envi-
ronmental-health effects, urban health, psychosocial factors in health, cardiovas-
cular-disease epidemiology, social environment-gene interactions, and the use of
complex systems approaches in population health. She serves on numerous re-
view and advisory committees, was awarded the Wade Hampton Frost Award
for her contributions to public health by the American Public Health Associa-
tion, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2009. Dr. Diez Roux re-
ceived an MD from the University of Buenos Aires and a master’s degree in
public health and a doctorate in health policy from the Johns Hopkins School of
Hygiene and Public Health.
Carlos Dora is coordinator of a global program on health impact assessment in

the Public Health and the Environment Department of the World Health Organi-
zation (WHO). He leads a unit on interventions for healthy environments that
is focused on improving the health consequences of policies in different sectors
of the economy. Earlier, Dr. Dora had developed a program on the environ-
mental health implications of transport policies and worked on policy frame-
works for environmental health, including the Strategic Environmental Assess-
ment Protocol and Environment and Health Performance Reviews, and on risk
assessment, including assessment related to the Chernobyl disaster and depleted
uranium. He also served as a senior policy analyst at the office of the WHO di-
rector general. Dr. Dora earned a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.

Appendix B 181
Jonathan E. Fielding is the director of the Los Angeles County Department

of Public Health and the county health officer and is responsible for all public-
health functions, such as surveillance and control of both communicable and
noncommunicable diseases and health protection, including emergency pre-
paredness, for the county’s 10 million residents. He is also a member of the
Los Angeles First 5 Commission, which grants over $100 million per year to
improve the health and development of children 0-5 years old. Dr. Fielding
chairs the U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force and was a found-
ing member of the U.S. Clinical Preventive Services Task Force. He also
chairs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advi-
sory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objec-
tives for 2020 and was appointed to the California Department of Public
Health Advisory Board. Dr. Fielding is a professor in the Schools of Medicine
and Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and
the author of over 175 peer-reviewed publications, editorials, and book chap-
ters on public health, health policy, health economics, emergency prepared-
ness, and evidence-based public-health practice issues. He has been the princi-
pal investigator on grants to develop health impact assessment methods and to
use them in assessing the health effects of existing or proposed policies in
other sectors. He is editor of the Annual Review of Public Health and chairman
of Partnership for Prevention. He also serves on the board of the American
Legacy Foundation and is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine. He
formerly served as Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health and vice
president of Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Fielding has received numerous awards,
including the Sedgwick Memorial Medal from the American Public Health
Association, the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the Harvard
School of Public Health, and the UCLA Medal, which is the university’s high-
est honor. He received his MD and MPH from Harvard University and an
MBA in finance from the Wharton School of Business.
Joshua Graff Zivin is an associate professor of economics in the Graduate

School of International Relations and Pacific Studies of the University of Cali-
fornia, San Diego (UCSD). He is also a research associate at the National Bu-
reau of Economic Research and research director for international environ-
mental and health studies at the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation.
From 2004 to 2005, he served as senior economist for health and the environ-
ment for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining the
faculty at UCSD, Dr. Graff Zivin was an associate professor of economics in the
Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. Dr. Graff Zivin’s
research spans three fields of economics—health, the environment, and interna-
tional development—and focuses on how uncertainty and heterogeneity affect
both individual and societal decision-making. He is currently engaged in three
large projects. The first makes use of primary data collected over the last several
years to examine the economic impacts of the AIDS crisis in Africa. The second
relies on a unique, matched dataset to understand the role of institutions, social

networks, and financial incentives in the production of new scientific knowledge

in the life sciences. The third examines behavioral responses to poor air quality
and its implications for the economic costs of climate change. Dr. Graff Zivin
earned his PhD from University of California, Berkeley.
Jonathan I. Levy is professor of environmental health at Boston University

School of Public Health. Dr. Levy’s research centers on developing models for
quantitative assessment of the environmental and health impacts of air pollution
from local to national scales, with a focus on urban environments and variability
in exposures and risks. Current research efforts involve developing methods for
cumulative risk assessment, addressing chemical and nonchemical stressors in a
low-income community, modeling spatial and temporal patterns of air pollution
associated with traffic and aircraft, and assessing the influence of indoor envi-
ronmental interventions on pediatric asthma. Dr. Levy was the recipient of the
Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award from the Health Effects Institute
in 2005. He is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Advisory
Council on Clear Air Compliance Analysis and previously served as a member
of the National Research Council Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Ap-
proaches Used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Committee on
the Effects of Changes in New Source Review Programs for Stationary Sources
of Air Pollutants. Dr. Levy earned an ScD in environmental science and risk
management from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Julia B. Quint is a research scientist and retired as chief of the Hazard Evalua-
tion System and Information Service in the Occupational Health Branch of the
California Department of Public Health. She was involved in identifying and
evaluating reproductive toxicants, carcinogens, and other workplace chemical
hazards and in developing research projects and other strategies to protect work-
ers, communities, and the environment from the hazards of toxic chemicals. Dr.
Quint is a member of the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring
Program Scientific Guidance Panel and the California Environmental Protection
Agency Green Ribbon Science Panel. She was also a member of the National
Research Council Committee on Tetrachloroethylene. Dr. Quint received a PhD
in biochemistry from the University of Southern California.
Samina Raja is associate professor of urban and regional planning and adjunct
associate professor of health behavior at the University at Buffalo, the State
University of New York. Her research focuses on planning and design for
healthy communities, sustainable food systems, and the fiscal dimensions of
planning. Her research on healthy communities examines the influence of the
food and built environments on obesity and physical activity. Her interests in
fiscal dimensions of planning pertain to the methods that planners use for meas-
uring the fiscal impacts of land development. Dr. Raja’s service to the commu-
nity and the planning profession is linked to her research interests. She is an
active member of the Food Interest Group of the American Planning Association

Appendix B 183
and serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Food Security Coalition.
Dr. Raja earned a PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
Amy J. Schulz is associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior and

Health Education and associate director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity,
Culture, and Health of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and
associate research professor in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
Dr. Schulz has a longstanding commitment and research record focused on the
contributions of social factors to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in
health. Her current research focuses on community-based participatory ap-
proaches to understanding social inequalities as they influence health disparities
with a particular focus on the health of urban residents. Since 2000, her work
has focused on understanding social determinants of obesity and cardiovascular
disease in Detroit and evaluating the impacts of interventions to reduce them.
She is principal investigator for the Lean & Green in Motown Project, which
addresses associations between social and physical environments and risk fac-
tors associated with obesity and the Community Approaches to Cardiovascular
Health intervention research project to improve cardiovascular health. She pre-
viously served as co-principal investigator for the Promoting Healthy Eating in
Detroit project. In addition to directing a number of major studies of chronic
conditions in multiethnic populations, she is a leader in the field of community-
based participatory approaches to research and intervention design. She has been
a frequent contributor to the published literature on racial and ethnic disparities
in health, on contributions of social factors to health disparities, and on the ac-
tive engagement of representatives of communities disproportionately affected
by health risks in researching and developing interventions to improve health.
Dr. Schulz received her PhD in sociology and her MPH in health behavior and
health education from the University of Michigan.
Aaron A. Wernham is director of the health impact project at Pew Charitable

Trusts. The project involves the creation of a new national center to promote the
use of health impact assessment (HIA) and support the growth of the field in the
United States. Dr. Wernham is a nationally recognized expert who has led HIA
at the state and federal level and conducted HIA training for, collaborated with,
and advised numerous health and environmental regulatory agencies on integrat-
ing HIA into their programs. Earlier, Dr. Wernham was a senior policy analyst
with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, where he led the first success-
ful efforts in the United States to integrate HIA formally into the federal envi-
ronmental impact statement process. He also directed a collaborative state-tribal-
federal working group on HIA and, with the assistance of this group, wrote HIA
guidance for federal and state environmental regulatory and permitting efforts.
Dr. Wernham received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco.

Appendix C
Statement of Task of the Committee

on Health Impact Assessment
An NRC/IOM committee will develop a framework, terminology, and

guidance for conducting health impact assessment (HIA) of proposed policies,
programs, and projects (for example, transportation, land use, housing, agricul-
ture) at federal, state, tribal, and local levels, including the private sector. The
committee will assess the value and potential value of such assessments; the
impediments and countervailing factors that have limited the practice of HIA to
date; the circumstances and criteria for conducting them; the concepts, tools, and
information required; and the types, structure, and content of HIAs. Based on
these considerations, the committee will develop a systematic, conceptual
framework and approach for improving the assessment of health impacts in the
United States.
184

Appendix D
Glossary
Capacity building: The process by which skills and competence are built for
understanding the use for and carrying out a health impact assessment. It may
include “policy seminars to sensitise senior managers and advocate change;
training courses to build knowledge of method and procedure; dissemination;
institutionalisation to enable self-sustaining training in institutions…;[and]case
studies and research to build specialist skills.”1
Community: In the context of this report, the committee uses this term to de-
scribe “groups of people who live in the same geographical area; groups of peo-
ple with a shared history, culture, language; [or] citizens for whom governments
are responsible and to whom governments are accountable.”2
Comprehensive plans: “A legal document that states the goals, principles, poli-
cies, and strategies to regulate the growth and development of a particular com-
munity… The main characteristics are comprehensiveness, long-range time
frame, and holistic territorial coverage. They include elements on land use, eco-
nomic development, housing, circulation and transportation infrastructures, rec-
reation and open space, community facilities, and community design, among
many other possible elements.”3
1
Birley, M.H. 2001. Annex 3: HIA Guidelines and capacity building. Pp. 39-56 in
Health Impact Assessment. WHO/SDE/WSH/01.07. Geneva: World Health Organization
[online]. Available: http://hia.anamai.moph.go.th/nwha/pdf/thai62e.pdf [accessed June 8,
2011].
2
AIDA (Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association). 2010. HIA Connect [online].
Available: http://www.hiaconnect.edu.au/reports/AIDA_HIA.pdf [accessed June 13, 2011].
3
Hutchinson, E.R., ed. 2010. Pp. 304-305 in Encyclopedia of Urban Studies. Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Examples of how comprehensive plans have ad-
dressed public health concerns can be found at http://www.planning.org/research/public
health/pdf/surveyreport.pdf.
185

Consultation: “The dynamic process of dialogue between individuals or groups,

based upon a genuine exchange of views, and normally with the objective of
influencing decisions, policies, or programs of action.”4
Cost-benefit analysis: A method of considering the advantages and disadvan-

tages of alternative policies or programs by converting all outcomes into mone-
tary values.5
Cost-effectiveness analysis: An analysis that compares two or more policies or

programs on at least two attributes, for example, costs and benefits. The analysis
is done at the margin—that is, to determine the incremental cost effectiveness of
one policy or program compared with another, the analyst determines the addi-
tional cost required to achieve an additional unit of benefit.6
Council on Environmental Quality: An agency in the Executive Office of the

President that “coordinates federal environmental efforts and works closely with
agencies and other White House offices in the development of environmental
policies and initiatives. CEQ was established…by Congress as part of the Na-
tional Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and additional responsibilities were
provided by the Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970.”7
Determinants of health: Many factors contribute to the health of individuals or

communities. “Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their cir-
cumstances and environment. To a large extent, factors such as where we live,
the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our
relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health,
whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health
care services often have less of an impact. The determinants of health include:
4
RTPI (Royal Town Planning Institute). 2005. Guidelines on Effective Community
Involvement and Consultation. Royal Town Planning Institute [online]. Available:
http://www.rtpi.org.uk/download/385/Guidlelines-on-effective-community-
involvement.pdf [accessed June 8, 2011].
5
Bergus, G.R., S.B. Cantor, M.H. Ebell, T.G. Ganiats, P.P. Glasziou, M.D. Hagen,
R.M. Hamm, F.H. Lawler, and J.F. Murray. 1995. A glossary of medical decision-making
terms. Prim. Care 22(2):385-393.
6
Bergus, G.R., S.B. Cantor, M.H. Ebell, T.G. Ganiats, P.P. Glasziou, M.D. Hagen,
R.M. Hamm, F.H. Lawler, and J.F. Murray. 1995. A glossary of medical decision-making
terms. Prim. Care 22(2):385-393.
7
CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality). 2010. The Council on Environmental Qual-
ity – About. Council on Environmental Quality [online]. Available: http://www.whitehouse.
gov/administration/eop/ceq/about [accessed Nov. 22, 2010].

Appendix D 187
the social and economic environment, the physical environment, and the per-
son’s individual characteristics and behaviours.”8
Environmental assessment (EA): In the context of the National Environmental

Policy Act, an environmental assessment is a public document that briefly dis-
cusses a proposed action and alternatives to it, including the need for the action
and the direct, indirect, and cumulative ecologic, cultural, historical, social, or
health impacts of the proposed action and the alternatives. It may be the basis
for determining whether the proponent agency has a responsibility for preparing
a more comprehensive environmental impact statement or whether it can exe-
cute a finding of “no significant impact.” It also aids in an agency’s compliance
with the statute when an environmental impact statement is not necessary.9
Environmental impact assessment (EIA): “The process of identifying, pre-

dicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant
effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and com-
mitments made.”10 It is a process mandated by law in countries around the
world, including the United States, and is also used by multilateral development
banks.
Environmental impact statement (EIS): The “detailed statement” required

by the National Environmental Policy Act for proposed major federal actions
“significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.”11 It is prepared
prior to a federal agency making a decision on the proposed action and must
include an analysis of the effects of the proposed action and reasonable alterna-
tives to it.12
Environmental, social, and health impact assessment (ESHIA): An inte-

grated process by which the impacts of a project on the environment, society,
and the health of individuals and the surrounding community are assessed.
These assessments are currently carried out more often in the oil, gas, and min-
ing industries.13, 14, 15
8
WHO (World Health Organization). 2011. The Determinants of Health. Health Im-
pact Assessment. World Health Organization [online]. Available: http://www.who.int/
hia/evidence/doh/en/ [accessed Feb. 10, 2011].
9
40 C.F.R. §1508.9.
10
International Association for Impact Assessment. 1999. Principles of Environmental
Impact Assessment Best Practice. International Association for Impact Assessment [on-
line]. Available: http://www.iaia.org/publicdocuments/special-publications/Principles%2
0of%20IA_web.pdf [accessed Nov. 22, 2010].
11
74 Fed. Reg. 63765 [2009].
12
42 U.S.C. Section 4332 (1969).
13
IPIECA/OGP (International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Asso-
ciation and International Association of Oil and Gas Producers). 2007. Health Perform-

European Union: In 2010, the European Union (EU) had 27 member states and
four applicants for membership. The EU “is not a federation like the United
States. Nor is it simply an organisation for the co-operation between govern-
ments, like the United Nations. The countries that make up the EU (its ‘Member
States’) remain independent sovereign nations but they pool their sover-
eignty…and delegate some of their decision-making powers to shared institu-
tions.”16 “The EU’s decision-making process in general and the co-decision pro-
cedure in particular involve three main institutions: the European Parliament
(EP), which represents the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them; the
Council of the European Union, which represents the individual member states;
[and] the European Commission, which seeks to uphold interests of the Union as
a whole.”17 The commission proposes new laws, which are debated and then
adopted by the European Parliament and the council of the EU. The commission
and the member states then implement the laws, and the commission ensures
that the laws are properly carried out.18
Framework: A set of basic elements of a process for evaluating scientific and

technical information; in the context of HIA, this process is conducted to under-
stand the potential adverse and beneficial effects of proposed policies, plans,
programs, and projects on health.
Health: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”19
ance Indicators: A Guide for the Oil and Gas Industry. OGP Report No. 393. Interna-
tional Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association, and International
Association of Oil and Gas Producers [online]. Available: http://www.ipieca.org/system/
files/publications/HPI.pdf [accessed June 2, 2011].
14
ICMM (International Council on Mining and Metals). 2010. Good Practice Guid-
ance on Health Impact Assessment. London, UK: International Council on Mining and
Metals [online]. Available: http://www.icmm.com/page/35457/good-practice-guidance-
on-health-impact-assessment [accessed May 16, 2011].
15
Chevron. 2011. Stakeholder Engagement. Growing Successful Partnerships. High-
lights [online]. Available: http://www.chevron.com/globalissues/corporateresponsibility/
2007/stakeholderengagement/#b2 [accessed Feb. 10, 2011].
16
EC (The European Commission). 2010. How the EU Works. The European Com-
mission [online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/about_the_eu/how_the_eu_works/
index_en.htm [accessed February 11, 2011].
17
EU (European Union). 2011. EU Institutions and Other Bodies. Europa [online].
Available: http://europa.eu/institutions/index_en.htm [accessed Feb. 11, 2011].
18
EC (European Commission). 2007. How the European Works: Your Guide to the
EU Institutions. European Commission. July 2007 [online]. Available: http://ec.europa.
eu/publications/booklets/eu_glance/68/en.doc [accessed Feb. 11, 2011].
19
WHO (World Health Organization). 2003. WHO Definition of Health. World Health
Organization [online]. Available: http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/print.html [ac-
cessed Nov. 22, 2010].

Appendix D 189
Health disparities: “Systematic, plausibly avoidable health differences ad-

versely affecting socially disadvantaged groups.”20
Health effect, health impact: In this report, these two terms are used inter-
changeably and defined as any change in the health of a population or subpopu-
lation or any change in the physical, natural, or cultural environment that has a
bearing on public health.
Health impact assessment: The most commonly cited definition of health im-
pact assessment (HIA) is in the Gothenburg consensus paper:
A combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, pro-

gram or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a
population, and the distribution of those effects within the population.21
Other definitions have arisen over the decades, and several examples are pro-
vided in Chapter 1, Table 1-1. As discussed in Chapter 3, the committee has
chosen to adapt the International Association of Impact Assessment definition22
and define HIA as follows:
population and the distribution of those effects within the population. HIA
The committee has selected a six-step framework as the clearest way to organize
and describe the critical elements of an HIA (see Chapter 3).
Screening determines whether a proposal is likely to have health effects

and whether the HIA will provide information useful to the stake-
holders and decision-makers.
20
Braveman, P.A., S. Kumanyika, J. Fielding , T. LaVeist, L.N. Borrell, R. Mander-
scheid, and A. Troutman. 2011. Health disparities and health equity: The issue is justice.
American Journal of Public Health [online]. Available: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/
cgi/reprint/AJPH.2010.300062v1?view=long&pmid=21551385 [accessed July 6, 2011].
21
WHO (World Health Organization). 1999. P. 4 in Health Impact Assessment: Main
Concepts and Suggested Approach. The Gothenburg Consensus Paper. Brussels: Euro-
pean Centre for Health Policy, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Brussels.
22
Quigley, R., L. den Broeder, P. Furu, A. Bond, B. Cave, and R. Bos. 2006. Health
Impact Assessment: International Best Practice Principles. Special Publication Series No.
5. Fargo: International Association for Impact Assessment. September 2006 [online].
Available: http://www.iaia.org/publicdocuments/special-publications/SP5.pdf [accessed
May 6, 2011].

Scoping establishes the scope of health effects that will be included in

the HIA, the populations affected, the HIA team, sources of data, meth-
ods to be used, and alternatives to be considered.
Assessment involves a two-step process that first describes the baseline

health status of the affected population and then assesses potential im-
pacts.
Recommendations suggest design alternatives that could be imple-

mented to improve health or actions that could be taken to manage the
health effects, if any, that are identified.
Reporting documents and presents the findings and recommendations

to stakeholders and decision-makers.
Monitoring and evaluation are variably grouped and described. Moni-

toring can include monitoring of the adoption and implementation of
HIA recommendations or monitoring of changes in health or health de-
terminants. Evaluation can address the process, impact, or outcomes of
an HIA.
Health impact assessment (HIA) practitioner: One who conducts HIA as an

individual or part of a team.
Health in all policies: “An approach that looks at all public- and private-sector
policy making through a health lens, with the objective of promoting and pro-
tecting the health of the population by addressing the social and physical envi-
ronment influences on health.”23
Human health risk assessment: A process used to incorporate the understand-

ing of the health implications of exposures, often environmental, into the regula-
tory decision-making process. See the description of “risk assessment” for more
information.
Indigenous: “An official definition of ‘indigenous’ has not been adopted by any
UN-system body. Instead the system has developed a modern understanding of
this term based on the following: self-identification as indigenous peoples at the
individual level and accepted by the community as their member; historical con-
tinuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies; strong link to territories and
surrounding natural resources; distinct social, economic or political systems;
23
PHI (Public Health Institute). 2010. PHI statement on Health in all Policies Task
Force, March 12, 2010 [online]. Available: http://www.phi.org/news_events/phi_state
ments.html [accessed Feb. 10, 2011].

Appendix D 191
distinct language, culture and beliefs; form non-dominant groups of society;

[and] resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and sys-
tems as distinctive peoples and communities.”24
Land-use planning: Considers a “community’s vision for future development;

the policies, goals, principles, and standards upon which the development of the
community are based; the proposed location, extent, and intensity of future land
usage; existing and anticipated future housing needs; the location and types of
transportation required; the location of public and private utilities; and the loca-
tion of educational, recreational, and cultural facilities including libraries, hospi-
tals, and fire and police stations.”25
Life-cycle assessment (LCA): “A technique to assess the environmental aspects

and potential impacts associated with a product, process, or service, by: compil-
ing an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental re-
leases; evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with identified
inputs and releases; [and] interpreting the results to help you make a more in-
formed decision.”26 “The major stages in [a life-cycle assessment] study are raw
material acquisition, materials manufacture, production, use/reuse/maintenance,
and waste management.”27
National Environmental Policy Act: A U.S. federal law that requires federal
agencies in the executive branch to “integrate environmental values into their
decision-making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their
proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions.”28 It establishes
U.S. environmental policy and the Council on Environmental Quality.29
24
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 2006. Indigenous Peoples
and Identity. Fact Sheet 1. United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [on-
line]. Available: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf
[accessed Jan. 4, 2011].
25
Breslow, L. 2002. Pp. 677-678 in Encyclopedia of Public Health, Vol. 3. New York:
Macmillan.
26
EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 2011. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [online]. Available: http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/
lcaccess/ [accessed Feb. 10, 2011].
27
EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 2011. LCA 101. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency [online]. Available: http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lcaccess/lca101.html
28
FedCenter. 2010. NEPA: General Description. FedCenter [online]. Available: http://
www.fedcenter.gov/assistance/facilitytour/construction/nepa/ [accessed June 13, 2011].
29
42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq.

Participation: The overarching term that describes “the extent and nature of
activities undertaken by those who take part in public or community involve-
ment, [engagement, and consultation.]”30
Plan: In the context of this report, a document, often adopted by a government

entity, that describes a future course of action for a community to achieve a de-
sired vision or goal. A plan typically describes the vision and goals of a commu-
nity or a problem that must be solved, includes a systematic synthesis of avail-
able information to analyze the problem, and identifies future actions that must
be taken and future investments that must be made to address the stated problem
and achieve the desired vision. Plans are prepared and implemented by all levels
of government but are especially common at local government levels. Plans in-
clude general or comprehensive plans, land-use plans, economic-development
plans, and transportation plans. Plans that are commonly subjected to health
impact assessment include plans for land use, infrastructure, and natural-
resource management.
Policy: Generally, “an agreement or consensus on a range of issues, goals and

objectives which need to be addressed….For example, ‘Saving Lives: Our
Healthier Nation’ can be seen as a national health policy aimed at improving the
health of the population of England, reducing health inequalities and setting
objectives and targets which can be used to monitor progress towards the pol-
icy’s overall goal or aims.”31 In the committee’s report, the use of the term is
extended to refer to anything other than land-use plans or development and in-
frastructure projects. In this context, policy includes formal and informal social
rules, including legislation, regulation, budgets, guidelines, and practices.
Program: “Usually refers to a group of activities which are designed to be im-

plemented in order to reach policy objectives…. For example, many Single Re-
generation Budget programmes and New Deal for Communities initiatives have
a range of themes within their programmes—often including health, community
safety (crime), education, employment and housing—and within these themes
30
http://www.rtpi.org.uk/download/385/Guidlelines-on-effective-community-involvement.pdf
31
WHO (World Health Organization). 2011. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Glos-
sary of Terms Used [online]. Available: http://www.who.int/hia/about/glos/en/index1.
html [accessed Feb. 11, 2011].

Appendix D 193
are a number of specific projects which, together, make up the overall pro-
gramme.”32
Project: “Usually a discrete piece of work addressing a single population group

or health determinant, usually with a pre-set time limit.”33 “Usually (but not al-
ways), the term refers to ‘bricks and mortar’ projects involving construction of a
discrete structure or group of structures, such as a power plant, highway, or
housing development.”34
Public (or community) engagement: Action taken to begin to “establish effec-

tive relationships with individuals or groups so that more specific interactions
can then take place.”35
Public health: The Institute of Medicine has defined public health as “what we,
as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be
healthy.”36 However, the term used in the present report refers more generally to
the health of the public. This use is synonymous with the emerging term popula-
tion health.37 Implicit in both terms is the notion that health is affected by a wide
array of factors that range from the societal to the biologic.
Public (or community) involvement: “Effective interactions between planners,

decision-makers, individual and representative stakeholders to identify issues
and to exchange views on a continuous basis.”38
32
33
34
UCLA HI-CLIC (University of California, Los Angeles-Health Impact Assessment
Clearinghouse Learning and Information Center). 2011. Glossary [online]. Available:
http://www.hiaguide.org/glossary [accessed Feb. 11, 2011].
35
http://www.rtpi.org.uk/download/385/Guidlelines-on-effective-community-
involvement.pdf [accessed June 8, 2011].
36
IOM (Institute of Medicine). 1988. The Future of Public Health. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
37
Kindig, D.A. 2007. Understanding population health terminology. Milbank. Q 85
(1):139-161.
38
http://www.rtpi.org.uk/download/385/Guidlelines-on-effective-community-involvement.pdf

Risk assessment: Traditionally, risk assessment is defined as “the characteriza-

tion of the potential adverse health effects of human exposures to environmental
hazards.” Risk assessment can be divided into four major steps: hazard identifi-
cation (“the process of determining whether exposure to an agent can cause an
increase in the incidence of a health condition”), dose-response assessment (“the
process of characterizing the relation between the dose of an agent administered
or received and the incidence of an adverse health effect in exposed populations
and estimating the incidence of effect as a function of human exposure to the
agent”), exposure assessment (“the process of measuring or estimating the inten-
sity, frequency, and duration of human exposures to an agent”), and risk charac-
terization (“the process of estimating the incidence of a health effect under the
various conditions of human exposure described in exposure assessment”).39
Stakeholder: Any individual or group that will be affected by the outcome of a

decision. Stakeholders may include the affected community or specific interest
groups, individuals, or organizations that have an economic stake in the outcome
and the proponents of a project.40
State environmental policy act: Legislation that “provides a way to identify pos-
sible environmental impacts that may result from governmental decisions [at the
state-level]. These decisions may be related to issuing permits for private projects,
constructing public facilities, or adopting regulations, policies or plans.”41 Several
states have state environmental policy acts, including California, Connecticut,
North Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA): “A systematic and anticipatory

process, undertaken to analyze the environmental effects of proposed govern-
ment plans, programmes and other strategies, and to integrate the findings into
decision-making. It involves the public and environmental and health authori-
ties, giving them a say in government planning: the responsible authority has to
arrange for informing the public and consulting the public concerned, and the
decision-maker has to take due account of comments received from the public
and from the environmental and health authorities. Such assessments are most
commonly carried out for land-use planning at various levels of government, but
39
NRC (National Research Council). 1983. Risk Assessment in the Federal Govern-
ment: Managing the Process. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
40
Mindell, J., E. Ison, and M. Joffe. 2003. A glossary for health impact assessment. J.
Epidemiol. Community Health. 57(9):674-651.
41
Washington State Department of Ecology. 2002. Washington State Environmental
Policy Act. Publication No. 02-06-013. FOCUS Sheet May 2002 [online]. Available:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0206013.pdf [accessed Mar. 22, 2011].

Appendix D 195
are also applied to other sectoral plans, such as for energy, water, waste, trans-
port, agriculture and industry.”42
Tribal environmental policy act: A model act that would establish an envi-
ronmental impact assessment for actions proposed by tribal governments in the
United States.43
Zoning ordinance (or bylaws): “Legislative regulations by which a municipal

government seeks to control the use of buildings and land within the municipal-
ity. It has become, in the United States, a widespread method of controlling ur-
ban and suburban construction and removing congestion and other defects of
existing plans.”44
42
UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe). 2010. New Interna-
tional Treaty to Better Integrate Environmental and Health Concerns into Political Deci-
sion-Making. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. July 6, 2010[online].
Available: http://www.unece.org/press/pr2010/10env_p22e.htm [accessed Jan. 3, 2011].
43
The Tulalip Tribes of Washington. 2000. Participating in the National Environ-
mental Policy Act: Developing a Tribal Environmental Policy Act. A Comprehensive
Guide for American Indian and Alaska Native Communities. The Tulalip Tribes of
Washington [online]. Available: http://www.tulalip.nsn.us/pdf.docs/Tribal_EA_Handbo
ok.pdf [accessed Nov. 22, 2010].
44
Columbia University. 2007. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Ed. New
York: Columbia University Press.

Appendix E
Summary of Health Impact

Assessment Guides
Tables E-1 and E-2 provide a summary of health impact assessment (HIA)
guides for each stage of the HIA process. Specifically, Table E-1 examines how
HIA guides conceptualize the stages of an HIA. It does not review emerging
approaches—such as practice standards (Bhatia et al. 2009, 2010)—or review
criteria (Fredsgaard et al. 2009). Table E-2 provides an overview of HIA guides
for policies and plans.
196

TABLE E-1 A Review of Health Impact Assessment Guidesa
Monitoring and
Screening Scoping Assessment Reporting Recommendations Evaluation
Development  Screening  Scoping ——  Reviewing HIA ——  Monitoring
Lending  Stakeholder report community health
(Pfeiffer and engagement  Reviewing performance of
Dora, unpublished community project
material, 2010)b health action
plan
ICMM  Screening  Scoping  Analysis of  HIA reporting ——  Developing health

(International  Community health impacts management plan
Council on profiling  Development of and follow up
Mining and (monitoring
and baseline mitigation and

Metal 2010) studies enhancement and evaluation)
 Stakeholder and measures
community
involvement
 Health impact
evidence gathering
IFC  Screening  Scoping  Risk assessment ——  Health action plan  Implementation

(International and monitoring
Finance  Evaluation and
Corporation verification of
2009) performance and
effectiveness
UCLA (Fielding  Screening  Scoping  Assessment  Reporting and —— ——

and Cole 2008)  Profiling monitoring
(Continued)
197
TABLE E-1 Continued 198
Monitoring and
Screening Scoping Assessment Reporting Recommendations Evaluation
MWIA  Screening  Scoping  Appraisal process  Identification  Identification of  Identification of
(Coggins et al.  Evidence  Community of potential recommendations indicators for
2008) based profiling beneficial and writing of report monitoring impacts
assessment  Stakeholder and or adverse of proposal on
key informant impacts mental well-being
 Research such as and implementation
literature search of recommendations
CHETRE  Screening  Scoping  Assessment ——  Decision-making and  Evaluation and

(Harris et al. 2007)  Identification recommendations follow-up
Greenspace  Screening  Scoping  Identification and ——  Make  Monitor impacts

(Greenspace  Set up a team  Local profile assessment of recommendations
Scotland 2008) to do HIA  Involve impacts
stakeholders
IAIA  Screening  Scoping  Full-scale HIA  Appraisal of  Establishment of  Monitoring of

(Quigley et al.  Public HIA report framework for compliance
2006) engagement intersectoral action
and dialogue  Negotiation of resource
allocations for health
safeguard measures
IPIECA  Screening  Scoping  Risk assessment;  Decision-making; ——  Implementation

(IPIECA/OGP impact establishing and monitoring
2005) assessment priorities;  Evaluation
reporting

EFHIA  Screening  Scoping  Assessment ——  Recommendations  Evaluation and
(Mahoney et al.  Impact of impacts monitoring
2004) identification
Merseyside  Screening ——  Conduct  Appraise  Negotiate  Implement and

(Scott-Samuel  Establish assessmentc assessment favored monitor
et al. 2001) steering options  Evaluate and
group document
 Agree on
terms of
reference for
assessment
 Select
assessor
EHIA  Project  Population  Prognosis of ——  Recommendations  Evaluation

(Fehr 1999) analysis analysis future pollution  Communication
 Regional  Background  Summary
analysis situation assessment
of impacts
a
This table examines how HIA guides conceptualize the stages of an HIA. It does not review emerging approaches, such as practice standards (Bhatia et
al. 2009, 2010), or review criteria (Fredsgaard et al. 2009).
b
This is not strictly a guide, and there is no assessment stage. The document assists lenders in following and reviewing health assessments.
c
This stage includes seven steps and covers scoping and assessment.
Abbreviations: CHETRE, Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation; EFHIA, equity-focused health impact assessment; EHIA, envi-
ronmental health impact assessment; IAIA, International Association for Impact Assessment; ICMM, International Council on Mining and Metals; IFC,
International Finance Corporation; IPIECA, International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association; MWIA, mental well-being
impact assessment; and UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles.

199
TABLE E-2 Health Impact Assessment Guides for Policies or Plans 200
SEA EPHIA
(EP/Council 2001; ODPM 2005) (Abrahams et al. 2004)
Screening—2.5 under Article 2(a), the plans and programs subject to the
directive are those which are:
 Subject to preparation or adoption by an authority at national,
Screening Screening
regional, or local level or prepared by an authority for adoption
through a legislative procedure by Parliament or government.
 Required by legislative, regulatory, or administrative provisions.
Stage A—Setting the context and objectives, establishing the baseline,

deciding on scope
A1: Identifying relevant plans, programs, and environmental

protection objectives.
Scoping A2: Collecting baseline data. Scoping
A3: Identifying environmental problems.
A4: Developing SEA objectives, indicators, and targets.
A5: Consulting on the scope of SEA.
Stage B—Alternatives and assessment  Conduct assessment

B1: Testing the plan or program objectives against the SEA objectives.  Policy analysis
B2: Developing strategic alternatives.  Qualitative and quantitative data collection
Assessment B3: Predicting the effects of the draft plan or program,  Impact analysis
including alternatives.
 Setting priorities among impacts
B4: Evaluating the effects of the draft plan or program,
 Recommendations developed

including alternatives.
B5: Considering ways to mitigate adverse effects.  Profiling
B6: Proposing measures to monitor the environmental effects of  Process evaluation
plan or program implementation.
Reporting Stage C—Preparing the environmental report Report on health impacts and policy options
Stage D—Consultation and decision-making

Responsible authorities will
Recommendations  Consult on the draft plan or programme and the environmental
report.
 Assess significant changes.
Monitoring and Stage E—Monitoring implementation of the plan or program  Monitoring

evaluation  Developing aims of and methods for monitoring.  Impact and outcome evaluation
Abbreviations: EPHIA, European policy health impact assessment; and SEA, strategic environmental assessment.

201
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Abrahams, D., A. Pennington, A. Scott-Samuel, C. Doyle, O. Metcalfe, L. den Broeder,

F. Haigh, O. Mekel, and R. Fehr. 2004. European Policy Health Impact Assess-
ment: A Guide, University of Liverpool, England; RIVM, Netherlands; Institute of
Public Health, Ireland; loegd, Institute of Public Health, NRW Bielefeld, Ger-
many. Prepared for the Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General,
European Commission. May 2004 [online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/health/
ph_projects/2001/monitoring/fp_monitoring_2001_a6_frep_11_en.pdf [accessed
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Coggins, T., A. Cooke, L. Friedli, J. Nicholls, A. Scott-Samuel, and J. Stansfield. 2008.
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2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the
assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment.
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Fielding, J., and B.L. Cole. 2008. UCLA Training Manual. Health Impact Assessment
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Greenspace Scotland. 2008. Health Impact Assessment of Greenspace: A Guide. Health
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May 17, 2011].

Appendix E 203
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rseyside_Guidelines.pdf [accessed May 18, 2011].

Appendix F
Analysis of Health Effects under the

National Environmental Policy Act
In Chapter 4, the committee noted that the analysis of health effects under
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been limited. To date, nei-
ther the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) nor federal agencies that
comply with NEPA have produced guidance on the analysis of health effects. As
discussed in Chapter 4, the lack of guidance on analyzing public-health effects
does not diminish the legal requirement to consider health in an environmental
impact statement (EIS). Agencies complying with NEPA, however, often lack
public-health expertise, and the lack of guidance may be a disincentive to a more
robust, systematic approach to health. Although there is no formal guidance,
existing regulations and relevant guidance provide a foundation for improving
the analysis of health effects in an EIS. To assist the agencies in conducting a
more robust, systematic analysis of health impacts, this appendix addresses the
following issues:
 Determining when to conduct a systematic analysis of health effects in

an EIS or environmental assessment.
 Determining the appropriate scope of health problems to include in the
analysis.
 Determining what populations or communities are affected and describ-
ing baseline conditions in them.
 Analysis of health effects in a manner that is scientifically and legally
defensible according to the requirements of NEPA.
 Mitigation of identified effects on public health.
 Responsibility and authority for public-health analysis under NEPA.
204

Appendix F 205
DETERMINING WHEN TO CONDUCT AN

ANALYSIS OF HEALTH EFFECTS
Health effects should be considered in complying with NEPA (40 CFR

1508.8). However, the CEQ also instructs agencies to “identify and eliminate
from detailed study the issues which are not significant or which have been cov-
ered by prior environmental review” (40 CFR § 1501.7(a)3). Agencies are thus
obliged to consider health effects only when there is reason to conclude that they
may be significant. Questions that agencies may wish to answer in determining
significance include the following:
 Were scoping comments on health submitted?

 Are health concerns a major point of controversy (even if the concerns
that have been raised are not likely to be supported by the analysis)?
 Are there other significant impacts likely that are known to affect
health? The effects of federal-agency actions subject to NEPA that may impact
health include emissions of hazardous substances; changes in community demo-
graphics; involuntary displacement of residents or businesses; changes in indus-
try actions or practices, employment, government revenues, or land-use patterns;
changes in modes or safety of transportation; reductions in access to natural re-
sources; and changes in food and agricultural resources.
Although environmental-justice guidance is intended to assist agencies in

addressing the potential for disparate effects on low-income and minority-group
communities, some of the principles also have relevance to health effects in the
general population. The CEQ suggests that agencies should “consider enhancing
their outreach” to public-health agencies and clinics (CEQ 1997).
DETERMINING THE APPROPRIATE SCOPE

OF HEALTH-EFFECT ANALYSIS
CEQ regulations on implementing NEPA contain several statements that

can help to guide an agency’s approach to scoping for health effects. First, agen-
cies are instructed to consider direct, indirect, and cumulative effects associated
with the proposed action and alternatives (40 CFR § 1508.8). Thus, agencies
should not arbitrarily limit consideration to health effects that may be the most
obvious or direct (such as those related to emissions or discharges) but should
systematically consider the potential for direct, indirect, or cumulative health
effects. Health determinants that might be considered and analyzed in the scope
of an environmental impact assessment under NEPA would be the same as those
considered in HIA and would include such factors as the quality and afforda-
bility of housing; access to employment and government revenues; the quality

and accessibility of parks, schools, and transportation services; neighborhood

safety; exposure to environmental hazards; the quality and affordability of food
resources; and the extent and strength of social networks. Moreover, agencies
should be responsive to concerns raised by stakeholders during scoping, particu-
larly when health concerns are a matter of controversy (40 CFR § 1501.7, 40
CFR § 1508.27(b)(4).
Environmental-justice guidance (EPA 1998) discusses what is relevant to
health effects in the general population and states the following:
The EPA NEPA analyst should develop a full understanding of baseline

demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental conditions so that a
comprehensive assessment of the types of impacts that may be imposed
upon all human and natural resources…can be conducted and an under-
standing of how these impacts may translate into human health concerns
can be developed.
NEPA and CEQ regulations do not identify any category of health effect
that is exempt from consideration under NEPA. Agencies are instructed to in-
clude all effects that may be significant, whether direct, indirect, or cumulative.
CEQ regulations (40 CFR § 1501.7(a)(3)) do, however, require that agencies do
the following:
Identify and eliminate from detailed study the issues which are not signifi-
cant or which have been covered by prior environmental review (§1506.3),
narrowing the discussion of these issues in the statement to a brief presen-
tation of why they will not have a significant effect on the human envi-
ronment or providing a reference to their coverage elsewhere.
In practice, a systematic approach to identifying health effects should help agen-

cies to ensure that potentially significant health effects are included.
DETERMINING THE AFFECTED POPULATIONS OR

COMMUNITIES AND DESCRIBING THE BASELINE
The description of the affected environment in the regulations indicates

the baseline with which impacts of the alternatives can be compared. For public
health, the comparison should include a concise discussion of the health status
and health determinants in the affected community. CEQ regulations clearly
indicate that the EIS should focus on describing aspects of the affected environ-
ment that are necessary for developing an understanding of the effects of the
alternatives (40 CFR § 1502.15). For public health, therefore, the goal is not a
comprehensive assessment of all health issues, but only the ones that are rele-
vant to the health impacts identified.

Appendix F 207
Public-health data and statistics for describing the public-health environ-

ment will be drawn from a variety of sources. Federal, tribal, state, and local
health departments maintain databases and surveillance on various health condi-
tions; local hospitals and clinics may also have relevant data. There may be re-
strictions on accessing or publishing some statistics because health data are sub-
ject to legal requirements intended to protect privacy. Consultation with the
appropriate health officials is a way for agencies to identify and access appropri-
ate data. Establishing cooperating agency relationships with the relevant health
agencies may also be desirable (40 CFR § 1501.6).
Determining what populations or communities may be affected requires an
understanding of the pathways through which impacts may occur. The CEQ
notes that the context of the decision is important for determining where signifi-
cant effects would occur; for example, site-specific actions are more likely to
have localized effects (40 CFR §1508.27).
ANALYZING THE HEALTH EFFECTS
As noted above, CEQ regulations require that agencies consider “the di-
rect, indirect, and cumulative effects” of the proposed action and alternative and,
as noted in Chapter 4, define health as one of the effects that should be included
(40 CFR § 1502.16, 40 CFR § 1508.8). They also note that the analysis may
include beneficial effects (40 CFR § 1508.8). Agencies are further directed to
consider how “economic or social and natural or physical environmental effects
are interrelated” (40 CFR § 1508.14).
The regulations and available guidance do not identify specific methods
that must be used in analyzing health effects or other effects more commonly
included in an EIS. Instead, NEPA simply requires that agencies “utilize a sys-
tematic, interdisciplinary approach which will insure the integrated use of the
natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts” (Section
102(2)(A)). Agencies are required to “insure the professional integrity, including
scientific integrity, of discussions and analyses in environmental impact state-
ments. They shall identify any methodologies used and shall make explicit ref-
erence…to sources relied upon for conclusions in the statement” (40 CFR §
1502.24). Thus, although the regulations on NEPA’s implementation do not
provide specific guidance on methods that should be used to assess health impli-
cations, they establish basic standards and expectations (as for all other effects
considered in an EIS) regarding a broad-based, interdisciplinary, scientifically
sound approach.
Uncertainty of predictions is a common concern in analyzing health ef-
fects, but this challenge is common to many effects considered in an EIS. In
many cases, controlled studies of a scenario analogous to the action being as-
sessed do not exist, and the agency must make judgments based on uncertain
predictions. CEQ guidance addresses the question of uncertainty and states that
“the EIS must…make a good faith effort to explain the effects that are not

known but are ‘reasonably foreseeable’” and that “the agency has the responsi-
bility to make an informed judgment” and “cannot ignore these uncertain, but
probable, effects of its decision” (CEQ 1981).
MITIGATATION OF IDENTIFIED EFFECTS ON PUBLIC HEALTH
Agencies are required to consider mitigation measures as part of the al-

ternatives (40 CFR § 1502.14(f)) or in response to any significant effects iden-
tified in the analysis (40 CFR § 1502.16(h)). Some existing regulatory stan-
dards (such as those established by the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act)
establish health-based thresholds that trigger actions to minimize exposure to
specific pollutants. Many impacts included in an EIS—including some health
effects—have no such thresholds or regulatory standards. In some cases, the
mitigation measures identified may lie outside the jurisdiction of the lead
agency or cooperating agencies. The CEQ (1981) has provided guidance on this
situation and states the following:
All relevant, reasonable mitigation measures that could improve the pro-
ject are to be identified, even if they are outside the jurisdiction of the lead
agency or the cooperating agencies, and thus would not be committed as
part of the RODs [Records of Decisions] of these agencies. Sections
1502.16(h), 1505.2(c). This will serve to [46 FR 18032] alert agencies or
officials who can implement these extra measures, and will encourage
them to do so. Because the EIS is the most comprehensive environmental
document, it is an ideal vehicle in which to lay out not only the full range
of environmental impacts but also the full spectrum of appropriate mitiga-
tion.
Health mitigation measures may be implemented not only through regula-

tions or requirements established by the lead agency but through actions taken
by a cooperating agency, another government entity, or local, state, or tribal
health department or through voluntary actions taken by a project proponent or
another stakeholder.
RESPONSIBILITY AND AUTHORITY FOR

PUBLIC-HEALTH ANALYSIS UNDER THE
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENAL POLICY ACT
Ultimately, compliance with NEPA requirements is the responsibility of

the lead agency. As noted previously, however, agencies are directed specifi-
cally to use an interdisciplinary approach (40 CFR § 1502.6). CEQ guidance has
emphasized the importance of soliciting cooperating agency participation to
fulfill this requirement and ensure a complete, efficient analysis (CEQ 2002).

Appendix F 209
Finally, CEQ requires that the “disciplines of the preparers shall be appropriate
to the scope and issues identified in the scoping process” (40 CFR § 1502.6).
Thus, when health effects are to be included, agencies should solicit the partici-
pation of public-health experts. Local, state, tribal, and federal health agencies
often have adequate public-health knowledge and data but may lack familiarity
with NEPA and will require orientation on the procedures and approach.
REFERENCES
CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality). 1981. Forty Most Asked Questions Concern-
ing CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act Recommendations. Memorandum
for Federal NEPA Liaisons, Federal, State, and Local Officials and Other Persons
Involved in the NEPA Process, from Nicholas C. Yost, General Counsel, Council
on Environmental Quality, Washington, DC, March 16, 1981 [online]. Available:
http://nepa.energy.gov/nepa_documents/TOOLS/GUIDANCE/Volume1/4-1-40_que
stions.html [accessed July 12, 2011].
CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality). 1997. Environmental Justice: Guidance Under
the National Environmental Policy Act. Council on Environmental Quality, Wash-
ington, DC [online]. Available: http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/nepa/regs/ej/justice.pdf [ac-
cessed July 12, 2011].
CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality). 2002. Cooperating Agencies in Implementing
the Procedural Requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Memo-
randum for the Heads of Federal Agencies, from James Connaughton, Chair,
Council on Environmental Quality, Washington, DC. January 30, 2002 [online].
Available: http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/nepa/regs/cooperating/cooperatingagenciesmemo
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EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 1998. Final Guidance for Incorporating
Environmental Justice Concerns in EPA’s NEPA Compliance Analyses. U.S. En-
vironmental Protection Agency. April 1998 [online]. Available: http://www.epa.
gov/compliance/ej/resources/policy/ej_guidance_nepa_epa0498.pdf [accessed July
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