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Health Impact Assessment Program

Policy and Project Evaluation

bikes on bridgeHealth Impact Assessment (HIA) provides decision-makers with information about how any policy, program or project may affect community health and wellbeing. The Oregon Public Health Division's Health Impact Assessment initiative focuses on building our collective capacity to evaluate the health effects of projects and policies, and to provide the information to decision makers.


News and Events

Curry County HIA Project wins national HIA award for excellence

The Curry County health impact assessment was one of two HIAs to be honored at the 2015 National Health Impact Assessment Meeting as part of a HIA recognition program aimed at highlighting the power of HIAs to support community wellbeing.

 


Clackamas Road Safety Audit HIA

The Clackamas County Road Safety Audit HIA is currently profiled on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Your Health - Your Environment Blog. The road safety audit (RSA) was chosen as the focus for an HIA because the RSA provided Transportation and Public Health staff with and opportunity to maximize the health benefits of RSA strategies implemented to improve to traffic safety, and to build off of Clackamas County's recently completed Transportation System Plan Update, which included health improvement goals. The HIA is also intended to support Clackamas County's "Drive to Zero" campaign, which aims to eliminate traffic crashes by promoting a culture of health throughout the county as part of the adopted Clackamas County Transportation Safety Action Plan. Read about the Healthy Community Design Initiative.


August 2013: HIA stories from the field

OHA is a recipient of HIA Program funding from the Healthy Community Design Initiative in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health. The CDC recently developed a series of case studies about recent HIA projects. You can read all of them, including one about OHA's Climate Smart Communities Scenarios HIA, at the CDC's website.


July 2013: Crook County Health Department wins NACCHO award for its "excellent use of the Health Impact Assessment process"

Crook County, Oregon, one of the first recipients of OHA's small HIA grants, was honored by the National Association of County and City Health Officials as 2013's Small Health Department of the year for "developing and implementing a program that demonstrates exemplary and replicable qualities in response to a local health need." One of the projects within that program was an HIA on a local bike path, which encouraged ODOT to award funds to the rehabilitation of the bike path.


July 2013: Curry County Housing Stock Upgrade Initiative HIA on OPB's Think Out Loud radio

In December 2012, OHA awarded a small grant to Curry County's health department to conduct an HIA on the potential health impacts of the Housing Stock Upgrade Initiative. In March 2013, the project was designated an Oregon Solutions project. In late July 2013, Curry County partners got together to hear a presentation of the health findings and draft recommendations, and to sign a declaration of participation committing to assist with implementation of the program. Curry County staffer and HIA practitioner Annette Klinefelter talked with OPB's Think Out Loud program about the health implications of aging manufactured units based on findings from the HIA and the pilot program that will replace 25 homes with new manufactured houses.