Health Impact Assessment: A Tool to Help Policy Makers Understand Health Beyond Health Care Brian L. Cole and Jonathan E. Fielding Department of Health Services, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, California, 90095-1772; email: blcole@ucla.edu, jfielding@ucla.edu Annu. Rev. Public Health 2007. 28:393–412 The Annual Review of Public Health is online at http://publhealth.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.083006.131942 Copyright c  2007 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 0163-7525/07/0421-0393$20.00 First published online as a Review in Advance on December 15, 2006 Key Words public policy, policy making, decision making, determinants of health, risk assessment Abstract Health impact assessment (HIA)—a combination of methods to ex- amine formally the potential health effects of a proposed policy, program, or project—has received considerable interest over the past decade internationally as a practical mechanism for collabo- rating with other sectors to address the environmental determinants of health and to achieve more effectively the goals of population health promotion. Demand for HIA in the United States seems to be growing. This review outlines the common principles and method- ologies of HIA and compares different approaches to HIA. Lessons learned from the related field of environmental impact assessment and from experience with HIA in other countries are examined. Pos- sible avenues for advancing both the field and the broader goals of population health promotion are outlined. 393 Annu. Rev. Public Health 2007.28:393-412. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by 52.73.204.196 on 05/12/22. For personal use only.