About Health Impact Assessments

A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a data-driven, community-based tool used to assess the potential health impacts of a policy, project, program or proposal. The goal of a HIA is to ensure that health and health equity are considered in decision-making using an objective and scientific approach, and engaging stakeholders in the process.

HIAs have been used at the national, state, and local levels for a variety of proposals including: transportation, housing, urban plans, pay equity policies (such as paid sick days) and nutrition standards. Explicit health impacts highlight health disparities and provide recommendations to shape public decisions and discourse. The purpose of the HIA process is to engage and empower communities, emphasize lay knowledge in decision-making, strengthen relationships and collaboration, and build consensus around decisions.

HIA consists of six-steps. These steps can be done quickly, using currently available data (or a “rapid HIA”) or these steps can be done over a longer period of time, involving a more robust data collection phase (or a “comprehensive HIA”). HIAs are used as a vehicle to include health in decision-making processes that would normally consider health impacts, and to bridge the gap of health inequities.