Research and practice of health impact assessments abroad

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is an important tool for promoting health in all policies. HIA helps decision-makers foresee how different factors can affect health, and to make choices between alternatives and improvements to prevent disease/injury, as well as to actively promote health. The Healthy China 2030 Planning Outline proposed the establishment of overall health impact assessment systems to systematically assess the potential health effects of various economic and social development programs and policies and important engineering projects on a population. This paper introduces international research on the definition, origin, development, function, contents, and implementation of HIA, as well as two typical practical examples, namely the HIA in Urban Design and Planning of Manukau, NZ, and the HIA of the Healthy Families Act of 2009, USA. Finally, the authors put forward suggestions for exploring and establishing the Chinese HIA system. Specifically, to strengthen the guidance of HIA to the direction of law and regulation, to promote the publicity and awareness of the HIA concept, and carry out research on HIA evaluation methodology and technical tools. Key words: Evaluation studies; Public policy