Matthias Wismar, Julia Blau, Kelly Ernst, Josep Figueras, (eds), The effectiveness of health impact assessment—scope and limitations of supporting decision-making in Europe, World Health Organisation, Copenhagen, 2007, 291 pages, ISBN 9789289072953

✍ Scribed by Dr Marcus A Chilaka

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 34 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0749-6753
• DOI: 10.1002/hpm.993

✦ Synopsis

The Effectiveness of Health Impact Assessment is the report of a project which was conducted to examine the extent to which health impact assessment (HIA) reports and recommendations were able to influence the decision-making process in different settings within Europe. Also examined were the factors that contributed to the findings about the various uses and applications of HIA in the decision-making process. Effectiveness was considered in three main categories namely, health effectiveness, equity effectiveness and community effectiveness.

As an emerging discipline within the broad public health science, HIA seeks to make relevant contributions to population health and sustainable development. Such disciplinary development has not been without controversies. Questions continue to be asked about the usefulness of HIA, its relationship to other impact assessments and the desirability or otherwise of institutionalising HIA, among other unresolved issues. Viewed within this backdrop, The Effectiveness of Health Impact Assessment contributes to this debate by demonstrating some degree of effectiveness in the 17 case studies that were examined.

One of the major strengths of the book is that the project being report upon was undertaken through a partnership of 21 teams from different organisations spread across 19 countries in Europe (between 2004 and 2007). As a result of this collaboration by a large number of organisations, an even far greater number of intellectuals and professionals in different fields made contributions to the book. The use of case studies from a variety of countries and sectors may be considered an indication of the reality of the use of HIA across Europe. The case studies used in the book under review were selected from different sectors relating to agriculture, the environment, land use, telecommunications, transport, urban planning and regeneration and the workplace.

The exploration of a variety of sectors demonstrates the universal applicability of health impact assessment. It also demonstrated the possible use of health impact assessment as a decision support tool at various administrative and political levels such as corporate, local and national governments. Other key findings from the mapping of the uses and applications of HIA include variations in the magnitude of effectiveness and general development of HIA between different countries in Europe. The book takes an affirmative standpoint regarding the desirability and possibility of institutionalising health impact assessment.

A key limitation of the book under review is the fact that only a relatively small number of case studies (17) were examined, thereby making generalisations difficult. The authors indeed caution against overgeneralisations of the research findings. Another limitation is that of international comparability among countries that differed significantly in many socioeconomic and political arrangements.