Abstract
Health impact assessment (HIA) is a structured and
stepwise process for identifying the potential beneficial and
harmful health impacts of a policy, program, development
or project proposal before its implementation, with the
purpose of using this information to improve the proposal.
A widely used and accepted definition of HIA is:
A combination of procedures, methods and tools by which
a policy, program or project may be assessed for its
potential, and often unanticipated, effects on the health of
the population and the distribution of these impacts within
the population.
