Health Impact Assessment

Course Objectives

• Understand and compare the range of practices used to conduct Health Impact Assessments in the US and internationally;
• Identify the opportunities and obstacles for using the National Environmental Policy Act and similar State-level laws as vehicles for health and social analysis;
• Examine emerging techniques to model the nexus between changes in the built environment and health determinants such as air quality, noise, walkability, and adequate housing
• Examine the Healthy Development Measurement Tool and applications to land use plans;
• Explore elements of politically relevant analysis, including stakeholder and decision-maker buy-in, the use of experiential knowledge, and effective framing and communication;
• Conduct one original analysis of a contemporary public agency policy, program, or project decision, examining one or more pathways between the decision and health outcomes

Instructors

• Rajiv Bhatia rajiv.bhatia@sfdph.org
• Edmund Seto seto@berkeley.edu
• Jason Corburn jcorburn@berkeley.edu

        Office Hours: by appt.

Class Format and Grading

Instruction will consist of one three hour of lecture and discussion each week. Assigned exercises will provide hands-on experience with steps and tools in the HIA process.

Basis of grading

• Exercises/Class Participation: 50%
• Project presentation: 15%
• Project report: 35%

HIA Class Project

Working as a team, members of the class will conduct a “hand’s on” HIA on a contemporary policy, program, or project. The typical course will involve: the selection of a policy, plan, or project for evaluation; a scoping exercise to identify potential impacts, mitigations, and research questions, potentially using a structured checklist; a description of pathways between the project, health determinants and health outcomes; review of evidence supporting pathways; participation in public meetings; a review of health analyses in an existing environmental impact report; research including field measurements, qualitative interviews, document review, and qualitative analysis; an application or the healthy development measurement tool or another similar structured HIA instrument; report preparation; and communication of findings to decision-makers and other stakeholders. Individual students will be responsible for components of the class project analysis. The deadline for turning in each student’s assignment/component of the final project is 2 days after last day of class.

Texts on Impact Assessment

• Vanclay F and Bronstein DA (eds), (1995) Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Kemm JR, Parry J, Palmer S, (eds), (2004) Health Impact Assessment: Concepts, Theory, Techniques, and Applications, Oxford University Press.
• Bass RE, Herson AI, Bogdan KM (1999) The Ceqa Deskbook: And 2001 Supplement, Solano Press Books
• Becker HA & Vanclay F. The International Handbook of Social Impact Assessment.: Conceptual and Methodological Advances. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar; 2003.
• Burdge RJ. A Conceptual Approach to Social Impact Assessment. Social Middleton: Ecology Press; 1998
• Ståhl, T, Wismar, M & Ollila, E, et al. (2006), Health in All Policies: Prospects and potentials, Helsinki: Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
• Birley, M (1995), The Health Impact Assessment of Development Projects, London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Web Resources on Impact Assessment

• HIA Community Wiki

    Government

• World Health Organization – Health Impact Assessment Website
• University of New South Wales HIA Connect
• Health Impact Assessment Gateway (UK) 
• National Association of City and County Health Officials (USA)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• State of Minnesota (USA)
• San Francisco Department of Public Health

    University HIA Websites

• Deakin University, HIA Unit (Melbourne, Australia)
• Netherlands RIVM HIA Database
• University of Birmingham, HIA Research Unit (Birmingham, UK)
• University of California Los Angeles, HIA Project (Los Angeles, USA)
• University of Liverpool, IMPACT - International Health Impact Assessment Consortium (World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Impact Assessment), Division of Public Health (Liverpool, UK)
• University of New South Wales, HIA Connect, Health Inequalities Program (CHETRE), Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, Faculty of Medicine (Sydney, Australia)
• University of California at Berkeley, Health Impact Group and Health Impact Assessment Course, School of Public Health, (Berkeley, California, USA)

General Articles and Print Resources on Public Health and the Built Environment

Emission Reduction plan for Ports and Goods Movement, California, Air Resources Board. http://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/gmerp/gmerp.htm

Arnstein S.  A ladder of citizen participation.  Journal of the American Planning Association.  1969; 35(4):216-224.

Bingler, S; Quinn, L, and Sullivan, K. Schools as Centers of Community: A Citizen’s Guide For Planning and Design”; National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, Coalition for Community Schools, Building Educational Success Together; Knowledge Works Foundation, Council of Educational Facility Planners; Washington D.C., 2003

Corburn J. Confronting the challenges in reconnecting urban planning and public health.  American Journal of Public Health.  2004; 94: 541-546.

Corburn J. Street Science:  Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice.  Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.

Dannenberg AL, Jackson RJ, Frumkin H, Schieber RA, Pratt M, Kochtitzky C, Tilson HH. The impact of community design and land-use choices on public health: a scientific research agenda. American Journal of Public Health. 2003;93:1500-8.

Dora C, Phillips M. Transport, environment and health. Copenhagen: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe; 2000. http://www.who.dk/document/e72015.pdf

Douglas M, Thomson H, Gaughan M. Health Impacts of Housing Improvements:  A Guide.  Public Health Institute of Scotland.  Glasgow. 2003.

Ewing R, Frank L, Kreutzer R.  Understanding the Relationship Between Public Health and the Built Environment: A Report to the LEED-ND Core

Committee.  2006.  Avaiable at http://www.cnu.org/aboutcnu/index.cfm?formAction=initiative_detail&initiative_id=55

Frank Fischer.  Citizens, Experts and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge.  Duke University Press, 2000.

Frumkin H, Frank L, Jackson R. Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning, and Building for Healthy Communities. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2004.

Fung, A, Wright, EO. Deepening Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance.  Politics and Society. 2001; 29(1):5-41.

Guidelines for Community Noise World Health Organization.  1999

Healthy Parks Healthy People:  The Health Benefits of Contact with nature in a park context.  Deakin University and Parks Victoria, 2002.

Jacobs J. The Death and Life of American Cities. New York: Random House; 1961.

Kawachi I, Berkman LF. Neighborhoods and Health. New York: Oxford University Press; 2003.

Keeley J, Scoones I. Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: A Review. Working Paper 89 Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Sussex 1999

Our Built and Natural Environments:  USEPA Washington DC 2001 http://www.smartgrowth.org

Prevention Institute The Built Environment and Health: 11 Profiles of Neighborhood Transformation http://www.preventioninstitute.org/builtenv.html

Rebecca Flournoy and Irene Yen The Influence of Community Factors on Health:  An Annotated Bibliography.  Oakland: Policy Link, 2004. http://www.policylink.org/CHB/

Sabel C, Fung A, Karkkainen B.  Beyond Backyard Environmentalism.  Boston: Beacon Press; 2000.

Class Lecture and Group Work Schedule