Health Impact Assessment—Past Achievement, Current Understanding, and Future Progress

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a process which helps decision making by predicting the consequences for health of choosing different options in terms of policies, plans, and projects. There is growing interest among health professionals, planners and politicians in using HIA to help safeguard and improve the health of populations and reduce health inequalities.

Health Impact Assessment: Past Achievement, Current Understanding, and Future Progress explores the past development of HIA, its current practice and possible future. Written in two parts, the first section by John Kemm provides an overview describing the various ways in which an HIA can be done. Highly practical in emphasis, it describes how HIA can be applied in different contexts to meet the needs of different decision makers and answer a variety of questions. It deals not only with the many good reasons for using HIA but also critically examines the weaknesses of current practice.

The second part consists of chapters written by authors practising HIA from different countries throughout the world, demonstrating the various pressures and legislative frameworks that have shaped the evolution of HIA. Illustrating the range of views about the reasons for doing HIA and how it should be done, and revealing how the practice of HIA has been adapted to suit different cultures and help decision making in varying situations.

John Kemm has recently retired as director of the West Midlands Public Health Observatory and now directs JK Public Health Consulting, a public health consultancy. He has had 35 years of experience working in public health and for the NHS. Prior to this he has been Deputy Regional Director of Public Health for the West Midlands, Director of Public Health for Health Promotion Wales, Consultant in Public Health for South Birmingham Health Authority, and a Senior Lecturer at both Birmingham and Nottingham Medical schools. Before taking up public health he taught physiology in Newcastle and at the Khartoum Medical School, Sudan. He qualified in Medicine at Cambridge and St Thomas Hospital, London. He started working on Health Impact Assessment when in Wales. He has led many health impact assessments and acted as consultant for several more. He has published numerous papers on the subject and is regularly invited to speak on HIA at workshops and conferences.