UCBHIG
UC Berkeley Health Impact Group
Health Impact Assessment
UC Berkeley School of Public Health 267D
The goal of this course is to expose students to the rationale, practice and potential of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) with a focus on its application to California’s land use and transportation policy making. HIA is an emerging policy evaluation practice that aims to inform policy decisions in many sectors in order to promote the conditions required for optimal health. HIA encompasses diverse methods, tools, and processes by which the potential health impacts of policies, plans, programs, and projects and policies may be evaluated. In this course, students consider the reasons for doing HIA, review a range of HIA case studies and analytic methods, and consider the potential of HIA as well as the needs and challenges for practice development. As a class project, students also critically evaluate a local, regional, or state policy, project, or plan, identifying health benefits and consequences, potential approaches to quantify or qualify how the project may change health determinants, and recommendations for alternatives or improvements.
Course Objectives:
Instructors:
Office Hours: by appt.
Class Format:
Instruction will consist of one three hour of lecture and discussion each week. Assigned exercises will provide hands-on experience with steps and tools in the HIA process.
Basis of grading:
HIA Class Project:
Working as a team, members of the class will conduct a “hand’s on” HIA on a contemporary policy, program, or project. The
typical course will involve: the selection of a policy, plan, or project for evaluation; a scoping exercise to identify potential impacts, mitigations, and research questions, potentially using a structured checklist; a description of pathways between the project, health determinants and health outcomes; review of evidence supporting pathways; participation in public meetings; a review of health analyses in an existing environmental impact report; research including field measurements, qualitative interviews, document review, and qualitative analysis; an application or the healthy development measurement tool or another similar structured HIA instrument; report preparation; and communication of findings to decision-makers and other stakeholders. Individual students will be responsible for components of the class project analysis. The deadline for turning in each student’s assignment/component of the final project is 2 days after last day of class.
Texts on Impact Assessment
Web Resources on Impact Assessment
Government
University HIA Websites
General Articles and Print Resources on Public Health and the Built Environment
Air Quality Land Use Handbook: A Community Health Perspective. California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board 2005
CEQA and Land Use Mitigation, Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality District, http://www.airquality.org/ceqa/index.shtml
Emission Reduction plan for Ports and Goods
Movement, California, Air Resources Board.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/gmerp/gmerp.htm
Arnstein S. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Planning Association. 1969; 35(4):216-224.
Bingler, S; Quinn, L, and Sullivan, K. Schools as Centers of Community: A Citizen’s Guide For Planning and Design”; National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, Coalition for Community Schools, Building Educational Success Together; Knowledge Works Foundation, Council of Educational Facility Planners; Washington D.C., 2003
Corburn J. Confronting the challenges in reconnecting urban planning and public health. American Journal of Public Health. 2004; 94: 541-546.
Corburn J. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.
Dannenberg AL, Jackson RJ, Frumkin H, Schieber RA, Pratt M, Kochtitzky C, Tilson HH. The impact of community design and land-use choices on public health: a scientific research agenda. American Journal of Public Health. 2003;93:1500-8.
Dora C, Phillips M. Transport, environment and health. Copenhagen: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe; 2000. http://www.who.dk/document/e72015.pdf
Douglas M, Thomson H, Gaughan M. Health Impacts of Housing Improvements: A Guide. Public Health Institute of Scotland. Glasgow. 2003.
Ewing R,
Frank L, Kreutzer R. Understanding the Relationship Between Public Health and
the Built Environment: A Report to the LEED-ND Core
Committee. 2006. Avaiable at
http://www.cnu.org/aboutcnu/index.cfm?formAction=initiative_detail&initiative_id=55
Frank Fischer. Citizens, Experts and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge. Duke University Press, 2000.
Frumkin H, Frank L, Jackson R. Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning, and Building for Healthy Communities. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2004.
Fung, A, Wright, EO. Deepening Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. Politics and Society. 2001; 29(1):5-41.
Guidelines for Community Noise World Health Organization. 1999
Healthy Parks Healthy People: The Health Benefits of Contact with nature in a park context. Deakin University and Parks Victoria, 2002.
Jacobs J. The Death and Life of American Cities. New York: Random House; 1961.
Kawachi I, Berkman LF. Neighborhoods and Health. New York: Oxford University Press; 2003.
Keeley J, Scoones I. Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: A Review. Working Paper 89 Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Sussex 1999
Our Built and Natural Environments: USEPA Washington DC 2001 http://www.smartgrowth.org
Prevention Institute The Built Environment and Health: 11 Profiles of Neighborhood Transformation http://www.preventioninstitute.org/builtenv.html
Rebecca Flournoy and Irene Yen The Influence of Community Factors on Health: An Annotated Bibliography. Oakland: Policy Link, 2004. http://www.policylink.org/CHB/
Sabel C, Fung A, Karkkainen B. Beyond Backyard Environmentalism. Boston: Beacon Press; 2000.
World Health Organization Social Determinants of Health: The Solid Facts http://www.who.dk/document/e81384.pdf
Class Lecture and Group Work Schedule
|
Class |
Lecture |
Readings |
Project / Group Work |
|
1 |
Overview of Health Impact Assessment Practice Internationally and Regionally Rajiv Bhatia The goal of this week is provide a background on HIA, present its use internationally, describe examples of regional applications. Student’s will learn the common stages and tasks of an HIA and explore how HIA is related to planning processes and other forms of impact assessment. |
1. Quigley R et al. Health Impact Assessment International Best Practice Principles. International Association for Impact Assessment. 2006 2. A Short Guide to Health Impact Assessment http://www.londonshealth.gov.uk/pdf/hiaguide.pdf 3. HIA Gateway http://www.hiagateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=hiagateway
|
Presentation of proposed class project |
|
2 |
A historical look at health and place Jason Corburn The class will examine the trajectories of the planning and public health fields in the 20th Century. Explore common origins in environmental quality; increasing specialization and fragmentation; individual versus place based intervention; diverging constituencies. Discuss how environmental justice, health disparities, and built environment have been forces driving the re-integration of public health and planning practice. |
1. Corburn J. Confronting the challenges in reconnecting urban planning and public health. American Journal of Public Health. 2004; 94: 541-546. 2. Ewing R, Frank L, Kreutzer R. Understanding the Relationship between Public Health and the Built Environment: A Report to the LEED-ND Core Committee. 2006. |
Students will consider what are the key relationships / pathways between the subject of the class project and health by participating in a brief scoping exercise. |
|
3 |
Oak to Ninth Avenue and Mac Arthur BART: Developing a Systematic Approach to HIA of Land Use Development Projects Edmund Seto, Tom Rivard, Rajiv Bhatia, The class will review the approach, methods, and findings of the Oak to Ninth and Mac Arthur BART HIAs. These represent critical evaluations of health effects related to infill development in urban areas such as Oakland. |
1. Oak to Ninth Avenue Health Impact Assessment: A Case Study 2. Oak to Ninth and Mac Arthur BART Health Impact Assessments (Optional) (Available at: http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/hia/)
|
The class will develop further the scope of the proposed HIA and individual students will select a focus issue for group work. |
|
4 |
How does HIA fit into Environmental Impact Assessment Rajiv Bhatia The class will learn the basics about CEQA, where HIA fits into requirements to conduct environmental impact assessment. The class will review case studies integrating health in EIA and discuss strategies and steps to support and institutionalize this practice |
1. Interactive California Environmental Quality Act Process Flowchart 2. Bhatia, R. Protecting Health with Environmental Impact Assessment: A Case Study of San Francisco Land Use Decision-Making. American Journal of Public Health 2007. 3. Karkkainen BC. Towards a Smarter NEPA: Monitoring and managing government’s environmental performance. Columbia Law Review. 2002; 102:903-972. 4. Barbour E, Tietz M. CEQA Reform: Issues and Options. Public Policy Institute of California 2005(OPTIONAL)
|
Groups will review relevant content of existing EIRs to understand how the proposed HIA compliments environmental analysis. |
|
5 |
The Validity of HIA Predictions & Assessing Health Impacts of Economic and Social Policies Rajiv Bhatia The class will explore different approaches to making predictions and discuss their implications for validity; the class will also examine how HIA can be used to examine social, economic, and environmental policies. Case studies and examples will include the minimum wage, paid sick days, condominium conversion, and speed limits. |
1. Veerman JL Mackenbach JP, Barendregt JJ. Validity of Predictions in health impact assessment. J. Epidemiology Community Health 2007;61:363-366. 2. Bhatia R, Katz, M. Estimation of health benefits accruing from a Living Wage Ordinance. American Journal of Public Health 2001;91:1398-1402.
|
The Class will consider the broader policy represented by the subject of the class HIA and the implications of this policy on health. |
|
6 |
Critiques of policy analysis: Does HIA provide a better way?
Jason Corburn The class will consider HIA in relationship to the diverse science of policy assessment exists to “inform” good public policy. Does HIA respond to the known limitations of technocratic policy analysis? Can HIA provide a meaningful role for inclusive public participation? How does HIA relate to power? What will it take for HIA to become a sustained form of scientific but democratic inquiry? |
1. Keeley J, Scoones I. Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: A Review. Working Paper 89 Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Sussex 1999 2. Sabel C, Fung A, Karkkainen B. Beyond Backyard Environmentalism. Boston: Beacon Press; 2000. 3. Anderson IA, Jaeger B. Scenario workshops and consensus conferences: Towards more democratic decision making. Science and Public Policy. 1999; 26(5): 331-340.
|
Invited community stakeholders will review and critique the planned HIA and discuss how the expected findings might be used by community stakeholders. |
|
7 |
The Healthy Development Measurement Tool: An HIA tool developed through a multi-stakeholder consensus building process Lili Farhang, SFDPH; Megan Gaydos, SFDPH; Peter Cohen, Asian Neighborhood Design; The class will explore the Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT),as a specific structured method to evaluate land use project impact on health conditions and one recent applications. |
1. San Francisco Healthy Development Measurement Tool. Available at: www,thehdmt.org 2. Arnstein S. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Planning Association 1969; 35(4):216-224.
|
Groups will develop a work-plan for conducting their section of the HIA analysis |
|
8 |
Developing Methods for HIA: Forecasting tools for assessing health impacts of air quality environmental noise Tom Rivard & Edmund Seto, The class will examine quantitative modeling techniques developed to assess the health effects of mobile sources air pollutants. Students will also consider how epidemiology, GIS, and other techniques be applied to build inter-disciplinary planning tools. |
1. Seto EY, Holt A, Rivard T, Bhatia R. Spatial distribution of traffic induced noise exposures in a US city: an analytic tool for assessing the health impacts of urban planning decisions. Int J Health Geogr. 2007 Jun 21;6:24. 2. Jerrett M, et al. A review and evaluation of intraurban air pollution exposure models Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology. 2005; 15:185-204.
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Class and group will consider application of air quality and noise assessment methodology to the current project |
|
9 |
Developing Methods for HIA: Forecasting tools for assessing health impacts of pedestrian quality Rajiv Bhatia, Megan Weir, Cyndy Comerford The class will a forecasting tool developed to assess the impact of development on pedestrian injury collisions along with a street scale pedestrian quality metric . |
1. Bhatia R, Wier M, Weintraub J. Impacts of Urban Land Use Development on Pedestrian-Motor Vehicle Collisions: An Application of the San Francisco Pedestrian Injury Model to Five Neighborhood Plans. DRAFT May 9, 2007 (Available at: http://www.sfdph.org/phes ) 2. Reading on Pedestrian Quality Index TBD |
Class and group will consider application of pedestrian quality methodologies to the current project |
|
10 |
Developing Methods for HIA: Creative uses of GIS and Maps in Health Impact Analysis Edmund Seto The class will consider various ways that maps can serve an assessment role in HIA. The class will review and interpret diverse maps that illustrate spatial variation in health or health resources, including those of park access, routes to schools, of socio-economic gradients, noise and air quality exposure. |
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Class and group will consider application of GIS and mapping methodologies to the current project |
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11 |
Comprehensive analysis, trade-offs, and multi-objective decisions Rajiv Bhatia The class will consider how HIA works to identify related or hidden issues, to inform trade-offs, and to stimulate multi-objective solutions. The class will consider examples from regional HIA practice. |
TBD |
Reserved for Group work |
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12 |
Reserved for group work |
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11/23 |
* Holiday * |
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13 |
Class Project Presentations |
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14 |
Institutionalization of HIA Rajiv Bhatia The class will consider examine various routes towards the institutionalization of HIA. Students will learn about current efforts in the US to promote & institutionalize HIA. |
1. Banken R. Strategies for institutionalizing HIA. ECHP Health Impact Assessment Discussion Papers Number 1. Brussels: 2001. 2. Dannenberg, AL. et al. Growing the field of Health Impact Assessment: An Agenda for Research and Practice. Am J Public Health. 2006;96: 262–270. 3. California Healthy Places Act (AB 1472; 2007)
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Class Evaluation |
© 2007 Edmund Seto, All rights reserved.