Glossary
Terms Commonly Used in Health Impact Assessment
- Assessment of Potential Health Impacts
- Comprehensive Health Impact Assessment
- Environmental Impact Assessment
- Health Impact Statement
- Health Inequalities Impact Assessment
- Human Impact Assessment
- Principles
- Rapid Appraisal
- Scoping
- Screening
- Social Impact Assessment
- Steering Committee
- Wider Model of Health
Assessment of Potential Health Impacts
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Stage 3: Assessment of Potential Health Impacts
Comprehensive Health Impact Assessment
Comprehensive HIAs are intensive and often require additional data from diverse sources. This level of assessment is rarely done in-house but usually by commissioning consultants or academics.
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Environmental Impact Assessment
"A process of predicting... the effects of an
action or series of actions on the environment, then using the conclusions
as a tool in planning and decision-making."
Source: Pritchard DE (1996)
Environmental
Impact Assessment: Towards Guidelines for Adoption under the Ramsar
Convention, 6th Meeting of the RAMSAR Contracting Parties: Brisbane.
An impact statement involves a closer scrutiny of the proposed policy, program or project. It typically includes greater stakeholder engagement but typically doesn't involve extensive data collection. It involves more time and resources than rapid appraisal and is often done by a group or panel rather than an individual.
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Health Inequalities Impact Assessment
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Stage 1: Screening
HIIA Checklist & Rapid
Appraisal Tools
Social impact assessment and health impact assessment taken together are called Human Impact Assessment (HuIA).
Source
National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (2003)
Human Impact Assessment Website, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), accessed December 4 2003.
http://www.stakes.fi/sva/huia/huiainstakes.htm
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Health Impact Assessment Guidelines
Rapid appraisal involves the structured assessment of the health impact of a policy, program or project by an individual or small number of stakeholders. It may involve sharing existing knowledge or checklist approaches to reviewing potential health impacts. Rapid appraisals are typically carried out with minimal resourcing within a shorter timeframe.
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Stage 2:Scoping
Health Impact Assessment Guidelines
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Stage 1: Screening
HIIA Checklist & Rapid
Appraisal Tools
Social Impact Assessment (SIA) means that the effects of a certain decision on people, on the community or on society are inspected in advance, to determine the changes the decision will cause in people's welfare or in the distribution of welfare.
Source
National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (2003)
Human Impact Assessment Website, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), accessed December 4 2003.
http://www.stakes.fi/sva/huia/huiainstakes.htm
Usually a Steering Committee is established between the screening and scoping steps to oversee the conduct and progress of the HIA. The Steering Committee can be as large or as small as required - eg. it may only be 3 or 4 people. Also when the Steering Committee is considering the range of stakeholders who need to be engaged in the HIA they may make a decision to invite other stakeholders to join. Sometimes however, the timeframe in which the HIA is to be conducted will determine the level and type of participation and engagement.
"Poor health cannot be explained simply by germs and genes. It is influenced by how we live and work and feel about our lives. Health, in its broadest sense, includes:
- Confidence and self esteem
- A sense of belonging within a community
- Physical and emotional well being"
Source
National Public Health Service for Wales (2003)
Health Inequalities Impact Assessment Checklist: guidance notes, National Public Health Service for Wales: Cardiff.
http://www.phel.gov.uk/hiadocs/Bro_Taf_guidance.pdf
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HIIA Checklist & Rapid
Appraisal Tools
HIA: Piloting the Process
in Scotland
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