Enabling factors and barriers for the use of health impact assessment in decision-making processes

Ahmad, Balsam; Chappel, David; Pless‐Mulloli, Tanja; White, Mark

doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2007.08.014

Cited by 28 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In general, facilitating factors to the introduction and implementation of HIA in the WHO-EHCN were the converse of the barriers: political support, HIA training and skills development, links with an academic/ public health institution, collaboration with a local health agency, access to HIA expertise and materials, previous experience of HIA, membership of a network, pre-existing culture of intersectoral working and a supportive national policy context. Some of these facilitating factors are the same or similar to those identified in other studies of the use of HIA in decision making: training and skills development, 6 intersectoral working, 12,13,16 repeated use or experience of HIA 17 and a supportive policy environment. 12,13 For many respondents, HIA was a relatively new concept and perceived as a complex methodology, not just for the city but in the country as a whole (see Box 3).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…Some of these facilitating factors are the same or similar to those identified in other studies of the use of HIA in decision making: training and skills development, 6 intersectoral working, 12,13,16 repeated use or experience of HIA 17 and a supportive policy environment. 12,13 For many respondents, HIA was a relatively new concept and perceived as a complex methodology, not just for the city but in the country as a whole (see Box 3). Thus, there was a lack of information about the methodology in the native language, of case studies to draw upon, of experts and academic/public health institutions where the methodology is studied or taught and no or limited support for HIA at a national or regional government level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…Some of the barriers to introducing and implementing HIA in the WHO-EHCN appear to be the same or similar to barriers to the use of HIA in decision making identified in the literature: the lack of a statutory or policy requirement for HIA, 12,13,17,20 a lack of support from decision makers, including politicians, 12,14 a lack of joint or intersectoral working, 13,16 difficulties in integrating HIA into existing organizational structures 13 and a lack of resources. 12 In an independent evaluation of the HIA work in Helsingborg Healthy Cities, 20 Halling found that the need to explain and clarify the purpose of HIA was a prerequisite for successful implementation because confidence in the methodology was necessary before people were prepared to invest resources in it and before politicians had the courage to use the results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Although in recent years there have been evaluations of the effectiveness of HIA in incorporating a consideration of health into policy-or decision making, [12][13][14][15][16][17] and evaluations of introducing HIA into a single country, 18 to our knowledge, this is the first evaluation of the simultaneous introduction of HIA in a network of European cities. For cities which are signatories to the Aalborg Commitments, the first European-wide assessment of performance against all commitments was completed in 2010.…”

Section: Ison S106mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Health Impact Assessment in a Network of European Cities

Ison

2012

J Urban Health

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The methodology of health impact assessment (HIA) was introduced as one of four core themes for Phase IV (2003IV ( -2008 of the World Health Organization European Healthy Cities Network (WHO-EHCN). Four objectives for HIA were set at the beginning of the phase. We report on the results of the evaluation of introducing and implementing this methodology in cities from countries across Europe with widely differing economies and sociopolitical contexts. Two main sources of data were used: a general questionnaire designed for the Phase IV evaluation and the annual reporting template for [2007][2008]. Sources of bias included the proportion of non-responders and the requirement to communicate in English. Main barriers to the introduction and implementation of HIA were a lack of skill, knowledge and experience of HIA, the newness of the concept, the lack of a legal basis for implementation and a lack of political support. Main facilitating factors were political support, training in HIA, collaboration with an academic/public health institution or local health agency, a pre-existing culture of intersectoral working, a supportive national policy context, access to WHO materials about or expertise in HIA and membership of the WHO-EHCN, HIA Sub-Network or a National Network. The majority of respondents did not feel that they had had the resources, knowledge or experience to achieve all of the objectives set for HIA in Phase IV. The cities that appear to have been most successful at introducing and implementing HIA had pre-existing experience of HIA, came from a country with a history of applying HIA, were HIA Sub-Network members or had made a commitment to implementing HIA during successive years of Phase IV. Although HIA was recognised as an important component of Healthy Cities' work, the experience in the WHO-EHCN underscores the need for political buy-in, capacity building and adequate resourcing for the introduction and implementation of HIA to be successful.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Ison S106mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Health Impact Assessment in a Network of European Cities

Ison

2012

J Urban Health

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“…It also points to the need for more evaluation of the other techniques from the health viewpoint. (Ahmad et al, 2008;Bendel and Owen-Smith, 2005;BMI, 1998;Douglas et al, 2007;Elliott and Francis, 2005;France, 2004;GCPH, 2007;Greig et al, 2004;Hay and Kitcher, 2004;Kemm et al, 2004;Lester and Temple, 2006;Mindell et al, 2004;PAS, 2008b;NHS London, 2008Wismar et al, 2007;YHEC, 2006) SA/SEA (Burns and Bond, 2008;Fischer et al, 2010) EIA (Sutcliffe,1995) IIA (Plant et al, 2007) EqIA (PAS,2008a) SIA (Wismar et al, 2007) NL HIA (Bekker et al, 2005;Kemm et al, 2004) SA/SEA (Fischer et al, 2010) Germany SEA (Fischer et al, 2010) HIA (Wismar et al , 2007) Denmark SEA (Kørnøv, 2009) Finland IA (Viinikainen and Kaehoe, 2007) Hungary HIA (Kosa et al, 2007) Italy HIA (Wismar et al, 2007) Sweden HIA (Wismar et al, 2007) USA HIA (Dannenberg et al, 2008;Farhang et al, 2008) IA (Bhatia and Wernham, 2008;Corburn and Bathia, 2007) EIA (Steinemann, 2000) Australia HIA (Blau and Mahoney, 2005;Gow and Dubois, 2007;Neville et al, 2005) IA (Kjellstrom et al, 2003) EIA 8 New Zealand HIA (Mathias and Harris-Roxas, 2009...…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%