Health Impact Assessments take on Transportation

A health impact assessment (HIA) is a flexible, data-driven approach that identifies the health consequences of new policies, and develops practical strategies to enhance their health benefits and minimize adverse effects.

The Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, is a national initiative designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) as a decision-making tool for policymakers. According to their website:

HIAs use a flexible, data-driven approach that identifies the health consequences of new policies and develops practical strategies to enhance their health benefits and minimize adverse effects. 

The Health Impact Project has recently made a huge commitment to researching the correlation between public health and transportation. The first-ever health impact assessment of a major metropolitan transportation and comprehensive growth plan will be led by the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture. According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO),

The HIP recently announced nearly $400,000 in grants to four organizations to conduct health impact assessments. One of the grants will be used to examine the health impacts of a 30-year transportation plan in the Atlanta region… [other] projects — to be conducted in Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Oregon — are at the leading edge of a growing movement in the United States in which governments, nonprofit groups, and other organizations use health impact assessments to help ensure that decision makers craft public policies and projects that avoid unintended consequences and unanticipated costs, according to the grant sponsors.

Though this is certainly a great start, $400,000 is, frankly, weak considering the amount of research money invested in other areas. Let’s hope these assessments are productive and persuasive as a sound method for addressing potential and often overlooked health implications of policy proposals.