253876 Health Impact Assessment: A tool for implementing Health in All Policies

Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 8:30 AM

Aaron Werham, MD , Health Impact Project, a collaboration of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, DC
     
New mandates to involve other sectors in efforts to improve the public's health—such as those found in Healthy People 2020, the National Prevention Strategy and California's executive order on Health in All Policies—raise a basic question: practically speaking, how can these mandates be implemented? Departments of transportation, housing, agriculture and others do not generally have health experts on staff, and public health professionals rarely understand the legal and technical context in which these agencies make decisions. Moreover, protecting health may be only one of many priorities and objectives that these agencies must weigh in developing new projects, plans and policies. Through case examples, this session will explore how health impact assessment (HIA) is being used by cities, states and community-based organizations to address these challenges, identify and address the health risks and benefits of decisions made outside the health sector, and build effective interagency collaborations.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related public policy
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
-Discuss the practical challenges and barriers to implementing Health in All Policies. -Explain the definition and steps of a health impact assessment -Describe the ways in which a health impact assessment can be used to implement cross-sector approaches to health improvement.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have conducted several Health Impact Assessments and lead a national effort to promote the use of Health Impact Assessment
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Implementing Health in All Policies in the US: Status Report and Opportunities Moving Forward
See more of: APHA-Center for Public Health Policy