RIASSUNTO
Abstract
Health impact assessments (HIAs) have been used for a number of years in the public sector to assess the potential for impacts associated with urban redevelopment projects. HIAs can also serve as a valuable tool in the evaluation of capital projects in the oil and gas sector. Conducting HIAs for industry capital projects, however, is not common and few people or organizations have experience performing HIAs in this context. While some guidance about HIAs is available, the focus is more on what HIAs are all about rather than how to perform one. These circumstances led us to develop HIA practices that are compatible with the generally accepted practices reported by others, but are nonetheless customized to meet our business requirements and expectations regarding HIAs. This paper discusses the elements of our HIA practices that we believe are key to producing effective HIAs. These include involving the ""right people?? at the right time, and HIA training to create a pool of health experts to support the process.
Introduction
Health impact assessments (HIAs) have been used for a number of years in the public sector to assess the potential for impacts of urban redevelopment projects. The general model used to perform HIAs consists of following framework: screening, scoping, impact analysis, developing a management plan, and stakeholder engagement. Extending HIAs to the industrial sector, particularly the oil and gas industry, has grown over recent years. However, while the framework of the general model used for urban development extends easily to industrial HIAs, the health issues that need to be considered for HIAs carried out in many parts of the world where oil and gas projects occur do not follow directly. Because of this, guidance for conducting HIAs for industry projects has grown and evolved rapidly. Early guidance focused on ""what?? an HIA is. In more recent years, guidance has supplemented the ""what?? with ""how to??information. Still, much of the guidance is fairly basic and generic and we found that it did not meet the needs of our company. Our experiences over the last several years have allowed us to develop practices that share the core elements of traditional HIAs, address the relevant health issues, and are flexible so that their implementation can be adapted to the circumstances and complexity of a given project.
In this paper, we review our HIA practices with an eye towards identifying the key elements that contribute to the creation of an effective HIA. For clarification purposes, readers should note that statements in this paper about ""impacts?? refer to potential impacts. This follows from the fact that HIAs are conducted before the project facility has been built or operated so no actual impacts exist at the time the HIA is being conducted. Also, ""impacts?? are meant to include both potentially harmful effects that might occur as well as beneficial effects that are expected to occur as a result of the project. Lastly, our HIAs are typically done in conjunction with environmental and social impact assessments. All of these assessments follow the same basic steps and together, the three impact assessments are referred to as ESHIA (environmental, social, and health impact assessment). The level and complexity of the HIA performed for a particular project will depend on a number of factors including project size, complexity, location and type. The level of HIA activities should be fit for purpose and may vary based on the specific project circumstances.