Health impact assessment

BMJ 1996;313:183-184 (27 July)

Editorials

Health impact assessment

An idea whose time has come

The Health of the Nation, England's strategy for a healthy population,acknowledges explicitly that many government policies have animpact on health and that their consequences for health needto be assessed and, when appropriate, taken into account.¹ Englandis not alone: the idea of health impact assessment is almostuniversally popular, though its implementation is patchy. Inthe developing world, where the importance of healthy publicpolicy is well understood, the prospective assessment of thehealth impact of resource allocation policies or of developmentprojects is nothing new.² ³ In the developed world, however,acknowledgement of the need for health impact assessment isstill in its early stages, and its meaning, methods, and applicationremain to be established. Only now is the scientific communitycoming to realise the crucial role of public and private policiesand projects in influencing the public's health.

The Commission . . . [Full text of this article]

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