The impact and effectiveness of health impact assessment:
A conceptual framework
The use of health impact assessment (HIA) has expanded rapidly and there are increasing demands for it to
demonstrate its effectiveness. This paper presents a conceptual framework for evaluating HIA and describes
its development through (i) a review of the literature, (ii) a review of work undertaken as part of a major HIA
capacity building project and (iii) an in-depth study of seven completed HIAs. The framework emphasises
context, process and impacts as key domains in understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of an HIA.
This new framework builds upon the existing approaches to evaluating HIA and extends them to reflect
the broad range of factors that comprise and influence the effectiveness of HIAs. It may be of use in evaluating
completed HIAs and in planning HIAs that are yet to be undertaken.