Health Impact Assessments (HIA)

Health impact assessment (HIA) is a fast-growing field that helps policymakers to take advantage of opportunities by bringing together scientific data, health expertise, and public input to identify the potential—and often overlooked—health effects of proposed new laws, regulations, projects, and programs. It offers practical recommendations for ways to minimize risks and capitalize upon opportunities to improve health. HIA gives federal, tribal, state, and local legislators, public agencies, and other decision makers the information they need to advance smarter policies today to help build safe, thriving communities tomorrow.

Health Impact Project
This initiative, created through a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, promotes the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) for community development decisions. The site provides access to HIA reports conducted by communities across the county, policy briefs, research, tool kits, and training materials. One of the project’s endeavors is the Collaboration for Green and Healthy Development, a partnership with Enterprise Green Communities (EGC) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to streamline comprehensive and systematic considerations of health in the EGC Criteria and the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification programs. Although both programs currently include health measures, it’s hoped that the collaboration will serve to strengthen and expand the consideration of health. [url; Pew Charitable Trusts]