The introduction of health impact assessment in the WHO European Healthy Cities Network

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been a strong and persistent voice calling for the recognition of the role of health in development and of the impact of socio-economic development on health. Health impact assessment (HIA) is one mechanism that can be used to achieve this goal. The objective of this paper is to describe HIA practice in the WHO European Healthy Cities Network and present some of the initial learning from a collective approach to introducing this relatively new methodology into municipal business. One of the foundations for this was a European Union (EU)-funded project entitled Promoting and Supporting Integrated Approaches for Health and Sustainable Development at the Local Level across Europe (PHASE). For Phase IV of WHO European Healthy Cities, HIA was made one of four core themes, and a sub-network in HIA was set up to support the introduction and development of the methodology. The use of HIA by four cities in the Network-Belfast, Onex-Geneve, Helsingborg, Bologna-illustrates the challenges and successes experienced in the initial stages of Phase IV.