HIA Preliminary Checklist

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Preliminary Checklist

The Design For Health (DFH) preliminary checklist is the first step in the HIA process used to identify health issues and determine if further assessment is needed. This simple two-page form enables planners to assess whether a project is significant enough in size and scope and has enough potential health effects to warrant more work. Part 1 addresses the size of the project/plan and Part 2 focuses on easily assessable specific items. These effects can be positive or negative, and are not the only effects that a project/plan may have.

For someone very familiar with the project, it should take only a few minutes to fill out. If additional information is needed, then it might take a couple of hours. In this desktop exercise, a reviewer responds to questions and sums the scores. The total score helps guide a decision about pursuing a more elaborate HIA. Although the total points may not indicate the need for an HIA, answers to a specific question could indicate a need to conduct further assessment.

Other DFH Resources:

  • HIA Preliminary Checklist PowerPoint Presentation
    For a newer version of this presentation, please see Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Presentations.
  • Participation and Planning for Health
    How can the public participate in planning for health? Which DFH tools can be used in participation processes or modified for such use? This fact sheet deals with these two issues.
  • Communicating about Health Impacts (80 KB)
    HIA tools produce a large amount of useful information about various health topics, the location of health impacts, and who is affected by a project, plan, or policy. This fact sheet presents practical ideas for presenting information about the HIA process and the findings of HIA studies to a variety of audiences.
  • Comprehensive Plan Review Checklists
    These plan review checklists summarize the key points of the DFH background and HIA materials. Topics match the plan elements required by the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council.

Additional HIA Information

  • HIA Connect in Australia *The HIA Connect website is currently in the process of being updated.
    This web site has a downloadable HIA Practical Guide. It is a fairly short and very clear guide to HIA including a preliminary checklist.
  • HIA Screening
    HIA tools and methods provided by the World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Health and Well Being Screening Checklist 
    This checklist, developed by the Devon Health Forum, provides a different example of a screening process designed to offer users a simple and easy to use process to ‘rapidly’ identify the health impacts of their work and help decide whether a more in-depth appraisal is needed. Unlike the DFH Preliminary Checklist which is score-based, this example uses a more qualitative approach to determining if further assessment is needed.
  • Housing for Health? A Screening Health Impact Assessment of the Consultation Draft of the Regional Housing Strategy (April 2007)
    The purpose of this report is to support the development of a Regional Housing Strategy (RHS). The North East Assembly, as the lead partner for the North East Regional Housing Board, is developing an updated RHS with the North East Public Health Observatory (NEPHO)—one of nine regional Public Health Observatories in England— to replace the existing strategy produced in 2005. A group of individuals with a range of skills and backgrounds, including public health and housing, screened the consultation draft of the strategy for potential health and inequality impact in March 2007.

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