Government Announces Funding for Health Impact Assessment Support Unit
The government has recently approved the establishment of a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Support Unit within the Ministry of Health to work across central and local government as part of the package of initiatives to improve children and young peoples' lifestyle, funded by the $67 million government wide Mission-On package.
The unit will promote and support the use of HIA and act as a resource for evidence and evaluation. It is anticipated that the unit will be guided by an external reference group of representatives from key central and local government agencies and individuals with expertise in impact assessment processes, including HIA. Government agencies will be encouraged to carry out HIAs on new policies of significance to the health of the population.
Part of the role of the HIA support unit will be to encourage the embedding of HIA into policy development processes and to assist agencies to develop capacity in this area. The Ministry of Health will work with other agencies to establish the HIA support unit by the end of June 2007.
A number of countries have established small, dedicated HIA units which they believe to be crucial to the successful implementation of HIA. England's Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) guidance has been strengthened so that policy makers must now consider health impacts at all the appropriate stages of policy development with the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) process.
Definition of Health Impact Assessment
HIA is a "combination of procedures, methods, and tools that is used to assess policies for potential effects on the health of the population, and of the distribution of those effects within the population" (PHAC). HIA is a practical way to ensure that health and wellbeing of the population is considered as part of policy development and decision-making in all sectors. HIA can be applied at two levels:
- the policy level, as a means for assessing the effects that policies across all sectors including central and local government are likely to have on health; and
- the project level, for example through the resource management process when a new sewage scheme is being considered for a particular community. The Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme administered by the Ministry of Health requires the environmental assessment to include an HIA which examines current risks to human health and assesses the benefits of the proposed upgrades.
Rationale for Health Impact Assessment
Applying the HIA tool during the policy development stage allows early recognition of the human health effects and can inform policy development. Similar approaches are popular internationally to protect and promote public health and are considered useful in the fight against chronic disease. Use of HIA for policies beyond the health sector reflects the fact that many health determinants are directly affected for good or ill by action in other sectors. In New Zealand the HIA process has been recently applied in a range of initiatives at central and local government level:
- Ministry for the Environment Drinking Water National Environmental Standard Screening HIA. This screening HIA looked at the Ministry for the Environment's national environmental standard for human drinking-water sources which was under development in 2006.
- Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in the development of a report that explores two different futures for electricity supply and demand in New Zealand. The HIA was commissioned to identify the health and wellbeing issues associated with the two scenarios.
- Transport sector in meeting the new public health objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy 2002.
For further information, please contact Frances Graham (Senior Analyst, Ministry of Health) on 04-495 4380 or at nhc_info@nhc.govt.nz.
Online guidance on HIA is available at Health Impact Assessment [link to PHAC website].
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