Health impact assessment in Italy

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a process which helps decision making by predicting the consequence for health of choosing different options in terms of policies, plans and projects. There is growing interest among health professionals, planners and politicians in using HIA to help safeguard and improvethe health of populations and reduce health inequalities.Health impact assesment: pastAchievement, current understanding, and future rogress explores the past development of HIA, its current practice and possible future.Writen in two parts, the first section by Jhon Kemm provides an overview describing the various ways in wich an HIA can be done. Highly practical in emphasis, it describes how HIA can be applied in different contexts tomeet the needs of different decision makers and answer a variety of questions. It deals not only whith the many good reasons for using HIA but also critically examines the weaknesses of current practice. The second part consist of chapters written by authors practising HIA from different countries throughout the world,demonstraiting the various pressures and legislative frameworks that have shaped the evolution of HIA.