Health Impact Assessment in New Zealand

Resources

Tools for HIA

A Guide to Health Impact Assessment – 2nd Edition (www.phac.health.govt.nz)
A Guide to Health Impact Assessment: A Policy Tool for New Zealand was prepared by the Public Health Advisory Committee (PHAC) to introduce health impact assessment (HIA) as a practical way to ensure that health and wellbeing are considered when policy is being developed in all sectors.

Whānau Ora Health Impact Assessment
The Whānau Ora Health Impact Assessment tool is a formal approach used to predict the potential health effects of a policy on Māori and their whānau. It pays particular attention to Māori involvement in the policy development process and articulates the role of the wider health determinants in influencing health and well-being outcomes.

An Idea whose time has come (www.phac.health.govt.nz)
This publication from the New Zealand Public Health Advisory Committee (PHAC) encourages policy makers to carry out a health impact assessment (HIA) as a routine part of policy making. It discusses what health impacts are, the benefits of HIA, what the PHAC has learned from its work on HIA, describes some HIA case studies, and considers what is needed to make HIA a routine part of policy making in New Zealand.

Mental Health Well-being Impact Assessment Toolkit (www.northwest.csip.org.uk) (PDF, 2.73 MB - WARNING large file size)
This publication offers a tool to assess the impact of organisations and policies on the mental health of the public, and workforce.
It creates the platform for organisations to be mental health aware and to promote mental health and well-being. It offers a resource to support those who choose to promote positive mental health and it provides the business case for why it makes sense to do so.

Effectiveness of health impact assessment. Scope and limitations of supporting decision-making in Europe (www.euro.who.int)
This book provides a detailed map of the use of HIA in the WHO European Region across a large range of sectors, including transport, environment, urban planning and agriculture, and at national, regional and local levels. It also reviews the implementation and institutionalization of HIA with specific focus on governance, financing, resource generation and delivery.

Rural Proof Your Policy (www.maf.govt.nz)
Rural Proofing is a process for taking into account the circumstances and needs of the rural community (rural people and rural businesses) when developing and implementing policy. It recognizes the importance of the rural community to New Zealand’s economy.

Rapid appraisal tool for health impact assessment
Health impact assessment has been developed to support people from different backgrounds and different situations in the assessment of a proposal's potential impacts on health. This rapid appraisal tool (sometimes known as the RAT Tool) enables users to understand better the health impacts of a proposal and to apply this information in policy decision-making.

Public Health HIA Service Specifications

A new important development for HIA has been a revision of the public health service specifications that the Ministry uses to purchase public health services.

The review has been completed and the final service specifications are now available on the Nationwide Service Framework Library website - http://www.nsfl.health.govt.nz/apps/nsfl.nsf/pagesmh/288. Look under the Social Environments and Health Promoting Schools service specification for the HIA service specification.

HIA is a recent addition to the service specifications. The final service specifications state that District Health Boards, public health services, non-governmental organisations, iwi and local Maori communities, local authorities and other public policy making bodies can apply HIA methods and approaches.

The major change from the previous service specifications is that there is now a comprehensive set of HIA-specific activities that providers can choose from to support a learning by doing approach for HIA.

The main areas of activity are:

undertake HIA activities (screening, scoping, appraisal and reporting, evaluation) using HIA tools available in New Zealand and internationally
build partnerships across a range of sectors to support the development and effective use of HIA methods and approaches
develop an organisational commitment to the adoption of HIA (ie. embedding HIA into an organisation’s decision-making)
provide awareness raising presentations, training sessions in the use of HIA, its value and benefits within and across organisations.

Each of these areas gives examples of specific actions that can be undertake to support HIA approaches at a local or regional level.

Applying Health Impact assessment to land transport planning - a research report.

This research project draws on learning from New Zealand and other countries to produce recommendations on the best application of health impact assessment (HIA) in land transport planning in New Zealand.

The research objectives were:

To assess the need for HIA, in the context of the New Zealand Transport Strategy (NZTS) and relevant legislation
To evaluate the role of HIA in land transport planning to date in New Zealand and explore barriers to the use of HIA
To understand the best point(s) for application of HIA within the New Zealand transport sector
To produce recommendations for better integration of HIA with other development processes in a transport context.

In order to meet these objectives, three separate data collection components were undertaken between September 2008 and January 2009:

an international literature review
a descriptive review of the various transport planning processes in New Zealand
four case studies examining how HIA has been applied to transport planning to date in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) funded the research project with co-funding from the Ministry of Health. It was conducted by public health consultants Quigley and Watts Ltd and impact assessment specialist Martin Ward.

The research has broad implications and leads to a number of recommendations about incorporating HIA elements into transport planning processes. In addition, further recommendations are provided for the NZTA, the local government sector and the public health sector aimed at overcoming barriers to HIA and the achievement of the public health objective in the NZTS. Suggestions are also made for an appropriate definition of HIA and guidance documents for the New Zealand setting.

Download this document: Applying health impact assessment to land transport planning - NZ Transport Agency Research Report 375 (PDF, 1 MB)

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Page last updated: 3 september 2009