Health Impact Assessment: A Method to Advance Injury and Violence Prevention

Background: There is evidence that decisions made in sectors such as transportation, housing, and urban planning affect injury risk. Health impact assessment (HIA) is a pragmatic process to identify the potential health risks and benefits of proposed policies, and to inform decision-making. As of November 2013, approximately 300 HIAs have been completed or are in progress in the U.S., many of which address injury-related health pathways.

Methods: We reviewed HIAs to identify ones that included injury and violence risks that were not fully recognized or addressed during the decision-making process.

Results: In this session, we will define the HIA process, its methods, and describe the potential for HIA to advance the field of injury and violence prevention. We will also present examples of HIAs that have considered pathways with potential injury effects -- 1) implementation of "smart metering" technology that would allow an electric utility provider to remotely connect and disconnect residential service; 2) health impacts of packaging regulations for medical and recreational marijuana; and 3) an urban redevelopment project. These cases illustrate how HIAs are an effective translational research tool and identify the unintended injury and violence risks of proposals.

Conclusions: Efforts to prevent injury can benefit from HIAs. Injury prevention professionals can contribute to HIAs by developing pathways that address important determinants of injuries; identifying sources of injury data; determining appropriate metrics to measure the potential health effects and for monitoring; highlighting inequities; and crafting recommendations that promote health and mitigate the risk of injury and violence.