Teaching Health Impact Assessment courses in universities: Methods for engaging students and community partners

Health impact assessment (HIA) is a tool to inform decision-makers about the potential health impacts of their decisions. Increasing capacity to conduct HIAs among public health practitioners is critical as the demand for HIAs continues to grow especially in local and state health departments. There are now graduate level courses on HIA lasting 8 to 15 weeks at four universities in the US: University of California - Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Indiana University, and University of Washington. New HIA courses are scheduled to begin in 2012 at Portland State University and University of Pennsylvania. Three of the four existing courses were developed in the past two years; thus, course design and delivery are still evolving. The four courses are offered in schools or departments of public health; two are cross-listed in departments of urban planning, thereby attracting students from a wider range of disciplines. The courses typically include an introduction to HIA methods, critical reviews of previously completed HIAs, exercises in the steps of conducting HIAs, and/or active engagement in the conduct of an HIA of a current local project often in collaboration with local decision makers. This presentation explores teaching HIA methods at the graduate level from the faculty and student perspectives, provides an overview of the course curricula, discusses techniques for selecting an appropriate HIA for experiential learning, and describes methods for engaging learners and community partners. Student feedback on these courses has helped identify successes and challenges in teaching such courses, and highlights from these student evaluations will be shared. This presentation will be valuable for public health professionals interested in exploring how to build capacity to conduct HIAs, for faculty considering developing a graduate level HIA course at their school, and for students considering taking such a course.