Building capacity, resources and momentum for HIA at state and local health departments: Lessons learned from pilot projects

Over the last several years, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) has been working in partnership with the CDC's Healthy Community Design Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to build capacity for Health Impact Assessment (HIA) at state and local health departments. To date, ASTHO has worked with seven states to complete 21 HIAs and train dozens of local health departments within the states. ASTHO has been collecting best practices and lessons learned through interviews, reports and training evaluations from states. Initial findings from these pilot projects show that states can play an important role in building a sustained infrastructure for HIA through providing technical assistance and resources, developing policy, raising awareness, building partnerships, and working with state leadership. Many states reported that building relationships with other sectors (e.g. land use, transportation, parks and recreation) was the single greatest success of HIAs completed. These new relationships are key to facilitating an ongoing dialogue about integrating health considerations into future projects and policies. This presentation will discuss the various ways that state and local health agencies have been successful at integrating HIA practice into ongoing work and building momentum for practitioners statewide. The barriers encountered and strategies for overcoming them will also be shared.