IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v11y2014i11p11054-11064d41609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Advancing Efforts to Achieve Health Equity: Equity Metrics for Health Impact Assessment Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Heller

    (Human Impact Partners, 304 12th Street, #2B, Oakland, CA 94607, USA)

  • Marjory L. Givens

    (Department of Population Health Sciences, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53726, USA)

  • Tina K. Yuen

    (National Association of County and City Health Officials, 1100 17th Street NW, Seventh Floor, Washington, DC 20036, USA)

  • Solange Gould

    (School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 50 University Hall #7360, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA)

  • Maria Benkhalti Jandu

    (Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, 1 Stewart Street, Room 300, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada)

  • Emily Bourcier

    (Center for Community Health and Evaluation, Group Health Research Institute, 1730 Minor Avenue, Suite 1600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA)

  • Tim Choi

    (Solano County Health and Social Services Department, 275 Beck Avenue, MS 5-240, Fairfield, CA 94533, USA)

Abstract

Equity is a core value of Health Impact Assessment (HIA). Many compelling moral, economic, and health arguments exist for prioritizing and incorporating equity considerations in HIA practice. Decision-makers, stakeholders, and HIA practitioners see the value of HIAs in uncovering the impacts of policy and planning decisions on various population subgroups, developing and prioritizing specific actions that promote or protect health equity, and using the process to empower marginalized communities. There have been several HIA frameworks developed to guide the inclusion of equity considerations. However, the field lacks clear indicators for measuring whether an HIA advanced equity. This article describes the development of a set of equity metrics that aim to guide and evaluate progress toward equity in HIA practice. These metrics also intend to further push the field to deepen its practice and commitment to equity in each phase of an HIA. Over the course of a year, the Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment (SOPHIA) Equity Working Group took part in a consensus process to develop these process and outcome metrics. The metrics were piloted, reviewed, and refined based on feedback from reviewers. The Equity Metrics are comprised of 23 measures of equity organized into four outcomes: (1) the HIA process and products focused on equity; (2) the HIA process built the capacity and ability of communities facing health inequities to engage in future HIAs and in decision-making more generally; (3) the HIA resulted in a shift in power benefiting communities facing inequities; and (4) the HIA contributed to changes that reduced health inequities and inequities in the social and environmental determinants of health. The metrics are comprised of a measurement scale, examples of high scoring activities, potential data sources, and example interview questions to gather data and guide evaluators on scoring each metric.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Heller & Marjory L. Givens & Tina K. Yuen & Solange Gould & Maria Benkhalti Jandu & Emily Bourcier & Tim Choi, 2014. "Advancing Efforts to Achieve Health Equity: Equity Metrics for Health Impact Assessment Practice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-11, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:11:p:11054-11064:d:41609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/11/11054/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/11/11054/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeffery Spickett & Dianne Katscherian & Helen Brown & Krassi Rumchev, 2015. "Health Impact Assessment: Improving Its Effectiveness in the Enhancement of Health and Well-Being," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-6, April.
    2. Ben Cave & Ryngan Pyper & Birgitte Fischer-Bonde & Sarah Humboldt-Dachroeden & Piedad Martin-Olmedo, 2021. "Lessons from an International Initiative to Set and Share Good Practice on Human Health in Environmental Impact Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-23, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:11:p:11054-11064:d:41609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.