“Health in All Policies” Approach and Health Impact Assessment in Russia and the world

This study presents analysis of the international and Russian experience of implementation of “health in all policies” approach into legislation, as well as of health impact assessment. Certain steps towards the implementation of this approach have already been made in Russia, however, in general, there is still a lot to be done. It was revealed that the current system regulatory impact assessment (RIA) in Russia has a narrow focus and is focused on protecting the interests of business, which does not correspond to the well-established world practice, which presupposes complex RIA, including the impact of regulation on public health. Recommendations for strengthening the principle of “health by all policies” in Russian legislation and the introduction of the practice of assessing the regulatory impact on public health in Russia are presented.

Ten Years of SOPHIA

In 2021, the Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment (SOPHIA) celebrates its 10-year anniversary. As part of the celebration, we asked founding SOPHIA members and key SOPHIA leaders to reflect on the organization’s formation in 2011, to share their thoughts on SOPHIA’s key challenges and to highlight important accomplishments. Respondents also weighed in on the future of SOPHIA and the value of SOPHIA membership. Research was conducted using written surveys, interviews, and review of written material. Surveys were sent in July of 2021 to eleven active SOPHIA members, many of whom have served as president, vice president, board member or founding member for SOPHIA. Of the eight survey recipients who were interviewed or completed the written survey, nearly all have been conducting Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) for 10 or more years. Survey respondents’ HIA experience included assessments focused on a variety of policies, projects and programs, including housing, land use, economic security, the built environment, transportation, immigration policies, minimum wage policies, criminal justice and more. This article includes information gleaned through written material review; however, it is largely based on the feedback, insights and experiences shared by survey respondents verbally and in writing.

Updating the Minimum Elements and Practice Standards for HIA to Reflect Evolution in the Field of Practice

The Minimum Elements and Practice Standards for Health Impact Assessment (MEPS) outline the minimum elements that need to be addressed for a study to be considered a health impact assessment (HIA), as well as best practices for how an HIA should be conducted. The document was originally created by a group of leading HIA practitioners in 2009. Since then, it has been updated twice to reflect the evolution of HIA as a practice and the expanded use of HIA as a tool to implement health in all policies. This commentary describes current efforts to revise the MEPS—the first update in six years.

Regional Parameters for Human Health Impact Assessment

The research paper is aimed to modify the human health impact assessment of Cr in soils. The current article presents the input of several critical parameters for the human health Impact Score (IShum) assessment in soils. The modification of the IShum is derived using geological data (results of neutron activation analysis of soils are used in the IShum calculation; research area is divided using the watersheds) and population size and density. Watersheds reflect the local environmental conditions of the territory unlike the administrative units due to their geological independence. The calculations of the Characterization factor value underestimate the influence of the population size and density on the final result. Default regional values cannot be considered during the assessment of the potential human health impact for the big sparsely inhabited areas. In case of very low population density the result will be overrated and underestimated in the opposite case. The current approach demonstrates the generosity of the geographical separation in the USEtox model. The same approach can be utilized for other geo zones due to the accessibility of this information (area size, population size and density, geological and landscape features).

Scientometric analysis of health impact assessment of outdoor air pollution by WHO-AirQ tool (2005-2019)

Introduction: This study provides a scientometric analysis of the health impact assessment within AirQ between 2005 and 2019, which are listed in the web science databases. Studies have been conducted in various indexed journals, researchers in World Health Organization (WHO) regional areas on product articles, international collaboration, and citation and keyword analysis. Materials and methods: Bibliographic records of research publications and articles were found and after screening process were input to study plan. The authors compared the growth of article that was published in this period time, conducted a citation and co-authorship analysis, and keywords co-occurrences relationship by publication using the scientometric visualization, VOSviewer. Results: The AirQ applying tool in research literature has seen most increase in 2017 production over the study period. Contributions by authors affiliated with WHO-Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) account for the most research literature. Most of studies focus on particles Particulate Matter with diameter <10 µm (PM ) and Particulate Matter with diameter <2.5µm (PM 2.5) and according to total mortality and in hospital admission, Respiratory Disease (RD) and Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) are most commonly. Conclusion: All potential of AirQ has not been used in studies. Despite all function its scope is limited to several countries in the WHO regions. Implementation of “Driving Force, Pressure, State, Exposure, Effect, and Action” (DPSEEA) conceptual model need some evidence that AirQ can achieve and estimate Health Impact Assessment (HIA) but we didn’t find any articles that work on intervention by it on policy makers and management programs.