title: Untapped potential of health impact assessment.
abstract: The World Health Organization has promoted health impact assessment (HIA) for over 20 years. At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), HIA was discussed as a critical method for linking health to "green economy" and "institutional framework" strategies for sustainable development. In countries having a high human development index (HDI), HIA has been added to the overall assessment suite that typically includes potential environmental and social impacts, but it is rarely required as part of the environmental and social impact assessment for large development projects. When they are performed, project-driven HIAs are governed by a combination of project proponent and multilateral lender performance standards rather than host country requirements. Not surprisingly, in low-HDI countries HIA is missing from the programme and policy arena in the absence of an external project driver. Major drivers of global change (e.g. population growth and urbanization, growing pressure on natural resources and climate change) inordinately affect low- and medium-HDI countries; however, in such countries HIA is conspicuously absent. If the cloak of HIA invisibility is to be removed, it must be shown that HIA is useful and beneficial and, hence, an essential component of the 21st century's sustainable development agenda. We analyse where and how HIA can become fully integrated into the impact assessment suite and argue that the impact of HIA must not remain obscure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland. mirko.winkler@unibas.ch
authors.forename: Mirko S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Winkler
authors.forename: Gary R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Krieger
authors.forename: Mark J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Divall
authors.forename: Guéladio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cissé
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wielga
authors.forename: Burton H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Singer
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanner
authors.forename: Jürg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Utzinger
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D003657:Decision Making; D003906:Developing Countries; D004777:Environment; D014943:Global Health; D062489:Health Impact Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D057766:Policy; D011157:Population Dynamics; D014944:World Health Organization