Shouldn’t health be considered in all our decisions? Health Impact Assessment (HIA), a practice with roots in Environmental Impact Assessment, aims to inform the public and decision-makers when decisions have the potential to significantly impact human health. Addressing identified negative impacts provides opportunities to improve individual and community-level health and decrease health disparities.

 

The San Francisco Bay Area Health Impact Assessment Collaborative is a partnership of academic, government, and non-profit HIA practitioners who have joined together to more effectively work together to conduct HIAs, develop tools and research methods, provide educational and mentorship opportunities, and help advance HIA-related policies. The Collaborative began working together in 2006 and is comprised of organizations that are national leaders in HIA practice including the non-profit Human Impact Partners (HIP), the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), and the University of California, Berkeley Health Impact Group (UCBHIG).

 

The Collaborative’s website – www.hiacollaborative.org – provides a place where you can go to access information about any of its Bay Area health impact assessment activities. On the website are examples of completed case studies, training and education opportunities, tools for conducting HIA, policies we have advanced, and how our work has engaged diverse stakeholders in HIA partnerships. An exciting component of the website is a discussion board that provides a forum for members of the public to post questions and read through answers from HIA practitioners.

 

Good HIA practice involves collaboration at every step. The planning of an HIA, the methods and research used, and the communication of findings require diverse skills sets that can be maximized by drawing on the strengths of different disciplines and working collaboratively across organizations. As the spirit of HIA advocates inter-disciplinary collaboration, we believe the formation of our Collaborative helps put this principle into practice.