Health Impact Assessment: A Step Toward Health in All Policies

Health impact assessment (HIA) is defined as a combination of procedures, methods and tools that systematically judges the potential, and sometimes unintended, effects of a policy, plan, program or project on the health of a population and the distribution of those effects within the population. Here, Collins and Koplan identify the potential applications of HIAs. They argue that an HIA that recommends the addition of pedestrian and bicycle facilities to a transportation plan would contribute to a built environment that promotes the public's health; HIAs could be used to examine the health effects of proposed agricultural policies, such as ones that enhance production of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods that contribute to the increasing obesity epidemic; and a timely HIA might have reduced the inadvertent effects of the No Child Left Behind legislation on physical education programs and health curricula by providing alternate scenarios for achieving the desired educational outcomes while simultaneously promoting health. Moreover, Collins and Koplan believe that HIAs provide a great vehicle in public health policy decisions.