Health Impact Assessment in the National Environmental Policy Act: Leveraging Resources across Federal Agencies for Environmental Health and Informed Decision-Making

The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) mandates federal agencies evaluate the environmental effects of significant federal actions through an environmental impact assessment process. Through NEPA's interdisciplinary framework, water, air, and other land-use issues are routinely examined. However, human health, environmental justice, and children's health are emerging areas for analysis and mitigation and have the potential to be improved through the NEPA process. As agencies responsible for complying, cooperating and commenting on federal actions under NEPA, EPA and CDC can provide technical assistance and recommendations to other federal agencies on health analysis and mitigation strategies. Consequently, coordination between these two federal agencies for the purpose of improving public health outcomes through NEPA warrants consideration. A pilot partnership agreement has been established between the two agencies to advance mutual environmental public health goals and strengthen the bridge between environmental and public health impact assessment. This pilot partnership is intended to increase coordination and determine whether leveraging respective expertise and resources between EPA regional offices and CDC/NCEH will enhance public health considerations and mitigation within NEPA and other environmental assessment processes that guide decision-making affecting the natural and built environment. An overview of EPA and CDC's NEPA jurisdiction, opportunities for public health considerations in NEPA, components of the CDC-EPA Partnership Agreement and the ways in which state and local agencies can leverage resources to enhance public health considerations in regional NEPA projects will be presented and discussed.