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.

Hämeentie is the longest street in Helsinki, Finland, and one of the city’s main thoroughfares. It has four lanes of traffic, but no space whatsoever for cyclists. There’s no bike lane between the buses and the sidewalk.

To create their own, the Finnish collective Länsiväylä poured paint along one section of the street and then invited a group of cyclists to ride through it at midnight, leaving a visible trace of where bikes would ride if there were space, and creating a colorful new boundary.

Law-and-order types, worry not: The paint they used washes away with water. Unfortunately, that means that Hämeentie won’t really have a permanent new bike lane. At least not yet: The huge turnout might make city planners take notice. [via Good]

Drivers in northern China have been stuck along a 60-mile stretch of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway, some for days.

The Chinese authorities are struggling to clear the congestion, now entering its eleventh day and which, at its peak, stretched for more than 60 miles (100km). But the drivers still joining it are not optimistic about reaching their destinations swiftly. [Via The Guardian]

This particular and spectacular jam began on 14 August. At one point vehicles were moving half-a-mile a day with some drivers taking five days to clear it. Now it is slowly easing, said Zhang. He should know. He has been through it once already in the past 10 days. “It took me three days last time,” he said. “I am prepared. I have plenty of water.”

This week London opened the first two of twelve planned “cycle superhighways,” which Mayor Boris Johnson hailed as the dawn of a “cycle revolution.” A cycle revolution? probably not, buy it certainly sounds nice.

The project aims to increase cycling in London by 400 percent by 2025. Where possible, cycle lanes will be separated from motor traffic and painted blue. According to Transport for London (TfL),

We’re building the Superhighways to:

• Improve cycling conditions for people who already commute by bike
• Encourage those who don’t to take to pedal power and keep fit
• Help cut congestion
• Relieve overcrowding on public transport
• Reduce emissions.

However, according to the BBC, some London cyclists have dismissed Mayor Johnson’s announcement of two new cycle superhighways through the city as a “marketing gimmick”.

Grist reports that bike infrastructure advocates greeted the tracks by calling them “a marketing gimmick” and saying the title “superhighway” is overly generous. Perhaps, though the term is memorable and might help drivers remember to expect cyclists near them.

Transport for London (TfL) told the BBC that space constraints made it impossible to build cycle lanes the length of the routes.

Despite the cynicism of some cyclist, I believe this will help increase bicycle traffic and awareness.