The effectiveness of HIAs conducted in Australia and New Zealand

It occurred to me that I haven't posted a link to the final report on the Australian Research Council-funded study on the effectiveness of HIAs conducted in Australia and New Zealand between 2005 and 2009. The report has lots of information in it. Download it here.

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Urban HEART Report

The WHO Centre for Health Development has published a report on the Expert Consultation on Urban HEART held in November 2013. It's a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in HIA, health equity and urban planning issues at the city level.

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Global Health 2035

A really interesting and thoughtful piece by Dr Charles Clift at the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security on the new Lancet commissioned report Global 2035: A World Converging Within A Generation (you will need to register to gain access to the full report).

Click here to go to the full article.

He provides nice summary of the issues in the report and its historical context as a successor to the World Bank's 1993 Report Investing in Health.

My three take aways:

The report’s key innovation (akin to the DALY) is to support and popularize the concept of ‘full income’ – adding to conventional national income measures a valuation of the increase in life expectancy. On that basis it estimates that, between 2000 and 2011, 24 per cent of the growth in ‘full income’ in low and middle income countries was due to health improvements, equivalent to a 1.8 per cent per annum addition to GDP growth. Based on this methodology it concludes that ‘there is a very large payoff from investing in health’.
Its other big idea, captured in the title, is that with rising incomes in the developing world and continued improvements in health and delivery technologies, an achievable goal for nearly all countries in 2035 is to bring down infection, maternal and child mortality rates to the current levels of the four best performing middle income countries (Chile, China, Costa Rica and Cuba).

The Lancet also provides commentaries on the report by three global health leaders – Richard Horton (Lancet editor), Margaret Chan (WHO) and Mark Dybul (Global Fund) and heads of two key development institutions (Jim Kim of the World Bank and Helen Clark of the UN Development Programme). While the first group is largely favourably disposed, the latter two both focus on the commission’s failure to address the social and economic determinants of health. The report essentially argued that there are ‘complex and entrenched political obstacles’ to addressing them so it is better to focus on the health sector where a more immediate impact can be realized.
Kim and Clark argue strongly against this – they contend that there needs to be a balance between investments inside and outside the health sector if the goal of improving health is to be achieved. The global health community will need to heed these words if it wishes to find a proper place for health in the post-2015 development agenda.

I thought it ironic that the WB and UNDP (to a lesser extent) were advocating for a social determinants of health approach to the report (while the report authors were justifying why they didn't in the report)!

You can subscribe to the Global Health Security Newsletter produced by Chatham House by clicking this link.

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New HIA reports from the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP). These documents are available in both English and in French on the NCCHPP's website:

Planning Knowledge Sharing in the Context of a Health Impact Assessment

http://www.ncchpp.ca/67/new-publications.ccnpps?id_article=950 (en)
http://www.ccnpps.ca/88/Nouvelles_publications.ccnpps?id_article=949 (fr)

Developing a Citizen-Participation Strategy for Health Impact Assessment: Practical Guide

http://www.ncchpp.ca/67/new-publications.ccnpps?id_article=944 (en)
http://www.ccnpps.ca/88/nouvelles-publications.ccnpps?id_article=943 (fr)

The 12th International Conference on Health Impact Assessment (HIA): New issues arising from the evolution of the practice - Summary of Discussions

http://www.ncchpp.ca/67/new-publications.ccnpps?id_article=968 (en)
http://www.ccnpps.ca/88/nouvelles-publications.ccnpps?id_article=967 (fr)

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Why tackling inequality in the current financial situation remains important

Two different views and researches on the importance of cohesion and reducing inequalities. A study conducted by NCoC in partnership with other organisations, explores the relationship between civic engagement and economic resilience. It finds that the density and type of nonprofit organizations in a community, as well as its social cohesion, are important predictors of that community’s ability to withstand unemployment in a recession. The study identifies two main types of civic health that seem to matter most. One is the role of nonprofit organizations. The number of nonprofits per capita and the degree to which they directly engage local residents are both related to the unemployment rate. The other factor is social cohesion: interacting with friends and neighbors. Each type of civic engagement is separately valuable for preventing unemployment increases.

Nobel Prize winner and previous World Bank chief economist, Prof. Joseph Stiglitz was interviewed by the  German weekly The Spiegel on the raising inequality in the United States:  "the American dream has become a myth. The life chances of a young US citizen are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any other advanced industrial country for which there is data. The belief in the American dream is reinforced by anecdotes, by dramatic examples of individuals who have made it from the bottom to the top -- but what matters most are an individual's life chances. The belief in the American dream is not supported by the data." In June, Stilglitz published a book on the same topic "The price of inequality: how today's divided society endangers our future". Stiglitz focus on the financial and econonimical aspects leading to inequality, but he uses several health examples in his book. 

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The Prosperity of Cities is closely linked to a notion of development which include equity and environmental sustainability

Development actors need to explore a more inclusive notion of prosperity and development, finds new UN-Habitat report The State of the World’s Cities 2012/2013: The Prosperity of Cities.

According to the report, there is a need for a shift in attention around the world in favour of a MORE ROBUST NOTION OF DEVELOPMENT – one that looks beyond the narrow domain of economic growth that has dominated ill-balanced policy agendas over the last decades, and includes other vital dimensions such as quality of life, adequate infrastructures, equity and environmental sustainability.

“In this Report, UN-Habitat advocates for a new type of city – the city of the 21st century – that is a „good‟, people centred city,” said Dr Joan Clos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat.

“The cities of the future should be ones that are capable of integrating the tangible and more intangible aspects of prosperity, in the process shedding off the inefficient, unsustainable forms and functionalities of the city of the previous century or so and becoming the engine rooms of growth and development.”

The CITY OF THE 21ST CENTURY:

·         Reduces disaster risks and vulnerabilities for the poor and build resilience to adverse forces of nature.

·         Creates harmony between the five dimensions of prosperity and enhances the prospects for a better future.

·         Stimulates local job creation, promotes social diversity, maintains a sustainable environment and recognizes the importance of public spaces.

·         Comes with a change of pace, profile and urban functions and provides the social, political and economic conditions of prosperity.

The UNISDR report "Making Cities Resilient 2012 -- My city is getting ready! A global snapshot of how local governments reduce disaster risk" complements UN-HABITAT’s findings. Margareta Wahlström, Head, UNISDR, said that several elements used by UN-HABITAT to assess city prosperity, such as equity and good governance, also bolster disaster resilience. "The findings from our own studies on cities show that low socio-economic development need not necessarily limit all resilience-building activities, especially when the central government and multilateral agencies work together to ensure the right people come together to take action," said Wahlström said

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