Assessing health impact assessment: multidisciplinary and international perspectives

Krieger, Nancy; Northridge, Mary E.; Gruskin, Sofia; Quinn, Margaret; Kriebel, David; Smith, George Davey; Bassett, Mary T.; Rehkopf, David H.; Miller, Cari L.; Badgett, L.; Birn, Anne‐Emanuelle; Braveman, Paula; Breilh, Jaime; Carter, P.; Epstein, Paul R.; Koch‐Weser, Susan; Kunitz, Stephen J.; Lynch, John; Maluwa, Miriam; Marks, Sara; McMichael, Tony; Pitanguy, J.; Ravindran, T. K. K Sundari; Sclar, Elliott D.; Sihlongonyana, F.; Scott-Samuel, Alex; Shaw, Mary; Tarantola, Daniel; Victora, Cesar G; Wolfson, Michael

doi:10.1136/jech.57.9.659

Cited by 202 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Systematic reviews typically examine the intended effects of carefully controlled interventions, whereas HIA is usually more concerned with unintended health effects of policies in other sectors (48). If the bar for high-quality evidence is kept as high for HIA as it is for systematic reviews, finding adequate evidence for HIAs would be a rarity (37); it would be virtually impossible to find any evidence on which to base any HIA, yet policy makers would still make decisions without the benefit of information that an HIA could make available. Still, the limitations of this evidence must be communicated to all stakeholders clearly in HIA reports, not just full reports but also policy briefs, which may be the only documents seen by policy-makers.…”

Section: How Should An Hia Be Conducted?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this type of quantitative assessment can be more objective than other approaches, it incorporates numerous value-and model-based assumptions that are not always explicit (4,12,38,61). Among the potential pitfalls of HIA, Krieger et al (37) identified erroneous impressions of precision and confidence in predictions, a problem exacerbated by quantification which may give an unwarranted patina of robust science to an HIA. It may also omit or de-emphasize stakeholder participation, which a number of HIA practitioners suggest is a core element of HIA (47,67).…”

Section: Types Of Hiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Health Impact Assessment: A Tool to Help Policy Makers Understand Health Beyond Health Care

Cole

Fielding

2007

Annu. Rev. Public Health

188

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Health impact assessment (HIA)-a combination of methods to examine formally the potential health effects of a proposed policy, program, or project-has received considerable interest over the past decade internationally as a practical mechanism for collaborating with other sectors to address the environmental determinants of health and to achieve more effectively the goals of population health promotion. Demand for HIA in the United States seems to be growing. This review outlines the common principles and methodologies of HIA and compares different approaches to HIA. Lessons learned from the related field of environmental impact assessment and from experience with HIA in other countries are examined. Possible avenues for advancing both the field and the broader goals of population health promotion are outlined. HIA AS A NEW TOOL FOR AN OLD WAY OF DOING PUBLIC HEALTHFrom the time of Hippocrates public health practitioners have looked to the environment to identify the causes of ill health and for potential opportunities to advance well being. The seminal "Report on a General Plan for the Promotion of Public and Personal Health" to the Massachusetts legislature, authored by Lemuel Shattuck (69) in the mid nineteenth century, and the writings of Rudolf Virchow (72, p. 72) in that same century suggest a continuing recognition of the centrality of social and physical environmental effects on health. Snow's apocryphal removal of well pump handles to stem an outbreak of cholera, Gorgas' efforts to control yellow fever and malaria during the building of the Panama Canal, the dramatic improvements in motor vehicle safety in the United States as a result of improved vehicle standards and roadway infrastructure, and reductions in tobacco use over the past several decades demonstrate the potential of an environmental approach for improving public health. Although a more individualistic approach, emphasizing biomedical and behavioral paradigms, has frequently dominated the field since the mid-twentieth century (72), concern about the environmental determinants of disease remains a vital principal of public health (45). Over the past quarter century the World Health Organization has set forth a number of major declarations and initiatives calling for a return to an environmental approach to improving population health, including the Alma Ata Declaration (82), the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion (82a), the Jakarta Declaration on Health Promotion (83), the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion (86), and the Healthy Cities movement (5). Similar declarations have been made at the national level, including most significantly the Lalonde Report (39) in Canada and the Acheson Report (2) in the United Kingdom. Because the ability to modify many of the environmental determinants of disease lies outside the traditional province of public health agencies, intersectoral cooperation in creating healthy public policy (46) has been a common theme throughout these declarations and initiatives. Questions remain, however, about how...

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Section: How Should An Hia Be Conducted?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Types Of Hiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Impact Assessment: A Tool to Help Policy Makers Understand Health Beyond Health Care

Cole

Fielding

2007

Annu. Rev. Public Health

188

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“…In fact, we know very little about how, in the complex and contested world of policymaking, policy actors perceive and experience 'evidence tools' such as systematic reviews, impact assessments or economic decision-support tools (Katikireddi et al, 2013;Smith, 2013). Moreover, there is growing awareness of the limitations of such tools in policy contexts (Driesen, 2006;Krieger et al, 2003;Petticrew, 2007Petticrew, , 2003Siegerson, 2013;Tenney et al, 2006). This article seeks to address this gap by examining the perspectives of a broad range of policy actors on three distinct 'evidence tools' that have been promoted and employed within public health policymaking: systematic reviews; impact assessments; and economic decision-support tools (specifically, cost-benefit analysis and scenario modelling).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Black magic’ and ‘gold dust’: the epistemic and political uses of evidence tools in public health policy making

Stewart¹,

Smith²

2015

Evidence &Amp; Policy

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Concerns about the limited influence of research on decision making have prompted the development of tools intended to mediate evidence for policy audiences. This article focuses on three examples, prominent in public health: impact assessments; systematic reviews; and economic decision-making tools (cost-benefit analysis and scenario modelling). Each has been promoted as a means of synthesising evidence for policy makers but little is known about policy actors’ experiences of them. Employing a literature review and 69 interviews, we offer a critical analysis of their role in policy debates, arguing that their utility lies primarily in their symbolic value as markers of good decision making.

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“…Two books (NRC, 2011; and approximately 85 peerreviewed articles (Figure 2) with U.S. authors have been published since 2001. Some articles focused on HIA methods, such as challenges in conducting HIAs (Krieger, 2003), use of quantitative methods in HIA (Bhatia, 2011), use of stakeholder consultation in HIAs (Tamburrini, 2011), and modeling of traffic noise exposures (Seto, 2007). Other articles have focused on the effectiveness of HIAs (Bourcier, 2015), teaching HIA courses in universities (Pollack 2015), and a review of HIA guidelines (Hebert, 2012).…”

Section: Academic Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Brief History of Health Impact Assessment in the United States

Dannenberg

2016

CHIA

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Assessing health impact assessment: multidisciplinary and international perspectives

Cited by 202 publications

References 13 publications

Health Impact Assessment: A Tool to Help Policy Makers Understand Health Beyond Health Care

Health Impact Assessment: A Tool to Help Policy Makers Understand Health Beyond Health Care

‘Black magic’ and ‘gold dust’: the epistemic and political uses of evidence tools in public health policy making

A Brief History of Health Impact Assessment in the United States

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