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Health impact assessment
Definition of health impact assessment (HIA)
WHO defines HIA as “a combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, programme, or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population”.
Policy decisions made outside of the health sector influenced many determinants of health. HIA involves working with a range of decision-makers and stakeholders to support the building of healthy public policy. It studies upstream health determinants in an integrated way, rather than concentrating on single risk factors, and is a resource for risk governance in environment and health. HIA’s overall objective is to provide decision-makers with sound information on the any policy’s implications for health.