Community-Driven Health-Impact Assessment

Abstract

Highly participatory local health impact assessment processes can be used to identify and encourage practices and policies that promote health. They also foster community learning that can increase a community's capacity to improve local conditions for a healthier community. This chapter examines a Community-Driven form of Health Impact Assessment (CHIA) practiced in rural Nova Scotia, Canada since 1997. Experience suggests that informal learning in these processes is often transformative; ordinary citizens learn to identify factors that influence their health, to think beyond the illness problems of individuals, and to consider how programs and policies can weaken or support community health. They learn that that they can identify directions for future action that will safeguard the health of their community.