Human Impact Partners

Contributing timely information to the national debate about immigration policy reform, today, Human Impact Partners releases a new report – Family Unity, Family Health: How Family-Focused Immigration Reform Will Mean Better Health for Children and Families – that shines a light on the public health consequences of current immigration policy on children and families. Advised by a nationwide group of health and immigrant rights organizations and researchers, the report finds that that hundreds of thousands of families will experience hardship in the coming years if policies continue unabated. In particular, children will sustain these impacts across multiple measures of health and well-being. 

The report pulls together existing research and data from a wide range of sources on the impacts that the threat of deportation and detention has on the physical and mental health of children and families. The research was supplemented with focus group discussions and a survey of people in mixed-status families that we conducted. Results showed a marked disparity in indicators of both physical and mental health between children of undocumented immigrants and those whose parents’ legal status was secure. The report also makes a series of legislative and administrative policy recommendations to reduce the harms to health that result from the threat of detention and deportation. 

Visit the report website at: www.familyunityfamilyhealth.org.

Read the press release.

Human Impact Partners and ISAIAH are excited to release a rapid HIA examining the projected health effects of Minnesota House/Senate Bill HF0247/SF0711, which proposes to reauthorize integration funding and guide how schools use it, thus addressing racial integration in Minnesota schools by supporting opportunities for all students to succeed. The study found that the bill’s passage is crucial to maintaining and improving the programs, plans, and policies currently in place that support school integration and, through its benefits to school achievement and cross-race understanding, promote better health for all Minnesotans. The study also found that the bill could be improved and a broader range of programs and strategies could be included to ensure that school districts can achieve true integration. A comprehensive approach to school integration would result in longer lifespans, improved health behaviors, decreased stress and improved mental health, as well as better physical and social health. For the full report, click here or visit our Projects page.

Check out this great resource on "Promoting Equity through the Practice of Health Impact Assessment," authored by  the Adler School Institute on Social Exclusion, Human Impact Partners, PolicyLink, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Program on Health, Equity, and Sustainability. The authors came together with the recognition that the focus on equity needed to be strengthened within HIA practice, and we worked with a diverse Advisory Committee of equity advocates and HIA practitioners to develop the structure and content of this primer. 

Health impact assessment is in the New York Times! 

Read about how Denver Housing Authority and Santa Ana's Urban Housing Communities are improving health through housing.

HIP's Jonathan Heller is quoted and Lili Farhang also provided technical assistance on part of the project described in Denver.

Whether you are an established practitioner, have just completed your first health impact assessment (HIA) or a public health student researching HIA. IAIA 2013 welcomes HIA papers from everyone and on all topics. This year’s key themes (though don’t feel constrained by them) are ‘Reflecting the Range of HIA Practice’ and ‘Old Issues and New Applications’.

Paper Session 1 ‘Reflecting the Range of HIA Practice’ will explore the diversity of HIA practices and how HIA is being used worldwide.

Paper Session 2 ‘Old Issues and New Applications’ will explore new approaches for tackling established issues such as equity, effectiveness, climate change, integrated assessment and strategic and policy HIAs.

You don't have to put a presentation into the HIA Sessions you can put a health-focused one into the Environmental Impact Assessment or Social Impact Assessment Presentation Sessions if you wish!

Check out the IAIA13 website. 

Submit your paper or poster abstract online. 

The IAIA provisional programme can be found here. 

Check out pages 13 and 31 (and page 26 for details on the pre-conference HIA advanced master class)

If you need help submitting or want to discuss your proposed paper then contactfrancescav(0)internationalsos.com or b.harrisroxas(0)gmail.com. 

Human Impact Partners is excited to release an HIA examining the impacts of a proposal to increase state funding to $75 million for alternatives to prison in Wisconsin.  WISDOM, a non-profit network of congregations across Wisconsin that has been advocating for state funding for treatment alternatives to prison for nearly a decade, commissioned the HIA.  The HIA findings include strong evidence of the effectiveness of problem solving courts, such as drug and alcohol courts, mental health courts, and diversion programs, in improving health and public safety.  The HIA predicts that increasing state funding to $75 million a year would reduce the prison and jail population in Wisconsin, reduce crime, increase recovery from substance abuse and mental health problems, help more families remain intact – and save Wisconsin money on corrections costs.  The HIA involved a wide range of partners including many WISDOM congregations across Wisconsin, Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the state Public Defender’s Office, the University of Wisconsin and Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, and the HIA was partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The HIA findings support WISDOM’s 11X15 Campaign to decrease the number of incarcerated people in Wisconsin to 11,000 by 2015 and promote alternatives to prison.  For the full report, visit our Projects page.

For media coverage, visit our Press page. 

HIP wins  APHA's Henrik L. Blum Award For Excellence In Health Policy! 

HIP was awarded the Henrik L. Blum Award for Excellence in Health Policy, which recognizes an individual or organization who/that has demonstrated excellence, creativity, and innovation in the development and/or implementation of health policy, by the Community Health Planning and Policy Development (CHPPD) section of the American Public Health Association (APHA).  The award was given to HIP on October 28, 2012 at APHA's annual meeting in San Francisco.  We want to extend our thanks to CHPPD and to all our partners, including our public health colleagues, our funders, and the community based groups and community members with whom we work.  Our success completely relies on their strength and commitment. This award is not just for HIP, it is for all of us working on the social determinants of health and fighting for equity.

Human Impact Partners has just released the final HIA on the East Bay Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project. The East Bay BRT Project will connect downtown Oakland with East Oakland and San Leandro, and has the potential to improve health in those communities through impacts to mobility, access to goods and services, traffic safety, safety from crime, and air quality. HIP collaborated with TransForm, Oakland Community Organizations, and Allen Temple Arms on this HIA of the International Blvd segment of the BRT alignment. The Oakland City Council will vote on the proposed East Bay BRT Project on July 17. For the full report, visit our Projects page. 

Coinciding with a partner launch event in Los Angles on July 12, Human Impact Partners is releasing a Rapid HIA of the proposed Farmers Field development - a 72,000-seat football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. The HIA findings include that there are many communities in the vicinity of the proposed stadium that are especially vulnerable to impacts of the proposed development, which  include displacement, high housing costs, lack of employment opportunity, policing in the community, and decreased access to local public spaces.

 HIP worked with the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles (PSR-LA) to conduct the Rapid HIA. The final report highlights the impact of the proposed development on community health, offers recommendations for the mitigation of identified adverse impacts; and the HIA process provided potentially impacted residents with an opportunity to meaningfully participate in bringing health to the forefront of the decision making process for the project. To see a copy of the Final Findings and Recommendations of the Rapid Health Impact Assessment of the Proposed Farmers Field Development visit our projects page. 

Interstate 710 is a vital transportation artery that links the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to the Southern California region and beyond. An Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement on a proposed expansion of the freeway is being prepared by Caltrans and their partners, and the draft EIR/EIS was recently released. At the request of the communities near the I-710, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Gateway Cities Council of Governments oversaw the conduct of an HIA, led and completed by HIP with input from many stakeholders. This is the largest transportation project on which an HIA has been completed in the United States. The HIA was submitted to Caltrans, which considered whether/how to incorporate it into the draft EIR/EIS. The full HIA report is available from Gateway Cities COG here. A version with a correction to the executive summary is available here. A case study of the HIA project is available here.