Health Impact Assessment - Case Study Example

Introduction Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is now a major trend in the realm of impact assessments, which overlaps and integrates with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes. HIA’s overlap and integration with EIA processes stems from the need to accommodate public health issues, which have been given poor consideration in EIA (Glasson, Therivel, and Chadwick 330; Elliott and Thomas 38). Such integration, though necessary, beneficial, and practicable to some extent, has corresponding disadvantages, particularly where developing states are concerned. Developing states and developed states are at odd when it comes to the integration considerations. As Desai observes: “while economic growth seems to contribute to economic problems, economic security and prosperity seem to contribute to economic protection” (8). Pursuing both HIA and EIA has little consequences to the economic well-being of developed states. In contrast, developing countries’ economies may be at stake if they even consider fully integrating HIA with existing EIA processes. Unbeknown to developed states, however, even integration can have certain obstacles to them. Thus, in this essay, such high stakes and obstacles are explored to understand how they affect the conditions of both First World and Third World states. On a positive note, the essay also endeavors to present how integrated HIA-EIA processes can be advantageous to economically well-off and economically struggling countries. After all, health and environment are key components of the elusive utopia: sustainable development. To attain sustainable development, these two must ideally go hand in hand with other key components. Looming Disadvantages The efficiency with which state legislation and public institutions in developing countries deliver and apply environmental management highly depends on their level and pace of socio-economic advancement. This means that the poorer the country is, the more difficult it is to integrate HIA with EIA. Compared to highly industrialized countries in North America, Western Europe and Australia and Japan, developing countries can barely afford to implement EIA, much less to implement HIA as well. One of the main reasons for this difficulty is that most developing countries have not yet experienced the developmental take-offs experienced by developed countries decades and centuries earlier. Most developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific are naturally rich in flora and fauna resources. However, they are in a tight pressure to attain the level of development already attained by developed countries. Developing countries hope to uplift the state of their economies and eventually take off by industrializing. By integrating HIA with EIA, developing countries would experience double impediments to economic growth. Developing states “operate under severe resource constraints” (Paoletto). EIA by itself already presents a fiscal challenge. For less resilient states, HIA may escalate existing financial burdens. Rampant poverty and other economic growth concerns urge developing states to prioritize the satisfaction of their fundamental social needs before fundamental environmental considerations. EIA has already off-set this priority slightly and much more so now that integrating HIA has become a global trend. While, on one hand, the rising social and economic developments in developing states could be added motivating factors to have “the political will to initiate, implement and enforce appropriate environmental policies and laws,” these development imperatives could also push resources available for environmental protection to the limit (Paoletto). Due to the relatively low level of public awareness, especially environmental awareness, in Third World states, it is even more difficult for them to accept innovations in their existing impact assessments. This often results to an immobilized body politic that has no “sense of urgency and resolve” to lobby for political and legislative action in the name of sustainable health and ecological development. A citizenry unfamiliar with pertinent environmental policies and agreements, including the consequent environmental repercussions of human activities, would unlikely be spontaneous in observing “normative demands for efforts at environmental protection and enhancement” (Paoletto). Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that many developing countries are also in a state of “brain drain.” Even if there is high public awareness among some of them, another problem is the availability of technocrats or health and ecological experts. An article in the Seattle Times reports that “the critical shortage of health workers in developing countries is staggering” (Hagopian, William, and DeRiel). Because most of their resident technocrats have embarked on greener pastures or have been pirated by lucrative private firms, they could no longer be tapped to formulate strategies and methods for conducting integrated health and environmental impact assessments. Moreover, the remaining technocrats who could indeed share their expertise do not have sufficient support from the government and are currently struggling. To add insult to injury, the likelihood of getting sponsorship from private or international organizations is also slim. Health and ecological experts in NGOs or cause-oriented groups are particularly insufficient in number-- not even one fourth of the Third World labor force. Thus, even with their cooperation, it is unlikely to speedily procure health and environment-focused impact assessment data and come up with authoritative decisions. Common Disadvantages Indeed, the considerable overlap between environmental assessment and health impact assessment presents an obstacle to decision-making and quality assessment, since there is no clear boundary about where health concerns end and where environmental or social concerns begin. The real problem with integration is the subject of prioritization. Certain questions are underway: should health assessment be conducted before environmental assessment or the other way around? In addition, in the event these two key components are both suffering from imminent degradation and are requiring immediate attention, it would be very disadvantageous for poor countries with shortages in health experts and skilled ecologists as well as limited funding and resources. They cannot afford to conduct impact assessments for health and environment simultaneously. The same goes for industrialized countries. When either health or the environment would require more attention, they would have to prioritize one over the other. In a study by the International Labour Office (ILO), “virtually all countries, project investors or proponents pay for preparation of EIAs for their projects” (Bisset 54.15). Most of the time, initiators in the government and non-profit organizations or cause-oriented groups pay for their EIAs. The cost for preparing impact statements ranges from 0.1 to 1% of the capital cost of a project, as evidenced from developed and developing countries. This can increase when recommended mitigating measures are taken into account, but such costs vary depending on the form of mitigation recommended. The figures tend be “excessive and indicate that the EIA is a financial burden” (Bisset 54.15). Now, it is twice the burden with the integration of HIA. This fact presented by the ILO acknowledges how EIA undoubtedly costs more money, which means, integration with HIA would cost even more money. The only glimmer of hope is that “no major projects have been halted so far” (Bisset 54.15). The Fringe Benefits of Integration Developed states in Europe are among those who have embraced HIA as an integral part of environmental protection. The growing significance of HIA is instrumental to the European Union efforts to investigate the potential and imminent impact of major projects, policies and legislation on health and the environment. In effect, “HIA is now at the forefront of the public policy agenda with the development of the European Policy Health Impact Assessment manual” (Barnes and Scott-Samuel 2). One of the clear advantages of HIA as an element of EIA, is that “it fosters EIA institutional capacity building for addressing health concerns,” which may “contribute to more open, participatory, transparent, systematic, and substantiated planning and policy making” (Lawrence 459). Even in the most industrialized countries, like those in Europe, the United States, and Japan, it is worth stressing that a basic benefit of integrating HIA with EIA, is to encourage “government officials, private proponents and the public” to view impact assessments in terms of all direct and indirect repercussions of development projects. This means that an integrated impact assessment tends to be more holistic and inclusive and can induce more participation from various stakeholders. It seeks to extend protection and awareness beyond the environment to also accommodate the physical, mental and emotional health of people within the area. This educational function of integration is very much an advantage as it “more than compensates for impact reports that are often inaccurate, incomplete or too subjective” (“Nature and Purpose”). HIA and EIA integration can be “an unrealized opportunity for environmental health and justice” for developing countries (Bhatia and Wernham). Developing countries may experience further hazards in the health of its citizens and in the environment if they do not adopt an integrated health and environment impact assessment. Notwithstanding financial costs, the integration of EIA and HIA could prevent or resolve any potential or actual untoward risks, which may incur more financial burden to Third World States that insist on their present development methods. It is mutually beneficial for countries to integrate HIA with EIA because, according to McCartney and colleagues, “much of the information to be collected on environmental reciprocity and environmental vulnerability is the same for both” (22). Integration would prevent “redundancy in data collection and analysis ... as information collected in the EIA process provides inputs into the health analysis” (“Frequently Asked” 5). Looking at this angle, integration could end up being very cost-efficient for developing countries rather than otherwise. It would be even more beneficial if there is political support as well. Yet given the chaotic politics in the Third World, along with the lack of political will and maturity, it is highly unlikely for HIA to be integrated into local EIA practices with much aplomb and without much legal squabbles. Future Prospects and Present Examples Sooner or later, EIA process will undergo change now that integration with HIA has been listed among the top agenda of environment and health authorities, not only in industrialized countries, but also for the rest of the globe (Mod.3 4). Some countries are already incorporating important health dimensions into their environmental assessment frameworks. A case in point would be Canada. The Canadian Handbook of Health Impact Assessment particularly aims “to provide an integrated approach to the public health aspects within the framework of environmental assessment (EA)” (“Health Impacts” 4.) The concepts, strategies, methodologies and tools used to conduct HIA are to be applied to eight Canadian economic sectors, whose development projects have also been subject to environmental assessment. These sectors include agriculture, energy, forestry, mining, manufacturing, waste water and sludge management and transportation and communications. In other words, the framework used for HIA in Canada is reflective of the local environmental assessment framework. Discussions on the impacts of implementing development projects are focused on their consequent effects on the biophysical environment and on human health--with careful consideration on psychosocial and socioeconomic impacts and quality of life. The Canadian HIA anticipates a broad range of potential impacts which corresponds with the principles of sustainable development, “encompassing the ecosystem, the economy, and the social system” (“Health Impacts” 4). Canada’s example shows how a country regards sustainable development not just as a matter of human health but also as a matter of social, economic, and, of course, environmental sustainability. The dream of sustainable development has been very helpful in arriving at an approach that integrates “the risks and benefits to public health that may be associated with development projects” as well as “complements the broad concept of health as defined by the World Health Organization” (“Health Impacts” 4). As for developing countries, the move to integrate HIA and EIA is still tentative - though several health and environmental authorities have expressed interest in the integration. There are several more means available for carrying out EIA in developing countries than is often realized. However, these means are much underestimated. For one, information on health and the environment is growing in number and availability “from national and international research centres or data banks” (“Nature and Purpose”). Developing countries that are experiencing a critical shortage on health workers and environmentalists could use the available information to find alternatives on how to integrate HIA with EIA in a less costly but equally efficient manner. They could use these alternatives as a blueprint for conducting an integrated impact assessment that is not detrimental to their limited resources or attendant brain drain. There was one instance in the Republic of Tanzania, a country situated in East Africa, where an environmental health impact assessment (EHIA) could have prevented a local fertilising plant from seriously causing marine and air pollution. Marine resources and human health were affected to a significant degree. By the time efforts to correct the problem were made, crippling economic costs were already incurred, putting more strain on the Tanzanian economy. The Tanga Fertilizer plant eventually closed in the late 1980s, but “remains an economic and environmental liability” to this day (Mwalyosi, Hughes, and Howlett 37). Tanzania’s experience should be a good example to many of the Third World countries, who would rather pursue industrialization at the cost of their environment and the health of their citizens. Conclusion and Insights While it is indeed true that integrating HIA with EIA could present dual impediments to growth, financial burdens, and material and human resource constraints to developing countries, and to perhaps to developed countries with other national priorities in mind, it is also true that integration could prevent greater losses, especially in the quality of life and health of individuals. Health and environment are both key component of sustainable development. The neglect of one component would make sustainable development even more impossible to achieve. Thus, rather than look at its disadvantages, both developed and developing countries should work hand in hand to increase the advantages of an integrated approach to environmental and health management. In the name of global justice, countries that have sufficient resources should be generous enough to share their health and environmental expertise to struggling states. International organizations like the World Health Organization, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations should also put it upon themselves to sponsor initiatives to integrate HIA with existing environmental assessment frameworks in developing countries. As written in the article of Bhatia and Wernham, “open collaboration and discussion between all professionals interested in HIA/EIA will facilitate the success of individual efforts.” Works Cited Barnes, Ruth, and Alex Scott-Samuel. “Health Impact Assessment: Ten Minute Guide.” The University of Liverpool. The University of Liverpool, 2000. Web. 14 Sep. 2010. Bhatia, Rajiv, and Aaron Wernham. “Integrating Human Health into Environmental Impact Assessment: An Unrealized Opportunity for Environmental Health and Justice.” Environmental Health Perspectives. Environmental Health Perspectives, n.d. Web. 14 Sep. 2010. . Desai, Uday. “Environment, Economic Growth, and Government in Developing Countries.” Ecological Policy and Politics in Developing Countries: Economic growth, Democracy, and Environment. Ed. Uday Desai. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Print. Elliott, Mandy, and Ian Thomas. Environmental Impact Assessment in Australia: Theory and Practice. NSW: The Federation Press, 2009. Print. “Frequently Asked Questions about Integrating Health Impact Assessment into Environmental Impact Assessment.” HumanImpact.org. Human Impact Partners, n.d. Web. 13 Sep. 2010. . Glasson, John, Riki Therivel, and Andrew Chadwick. Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment. Oxon, OX: Routledge, 2005. Print. Hagopian, Amy, Eric Williams, and Emily DeRiel. “Stemming the Brain Drain of Health-care Workers From Developing Countries.” The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times, 28 May 2010. Web. 15 Sep. 2010. . “Health Impacts By Industry Sector.” The Canadian Handbook on Health Impact Assessment 4 (2004): 1-26. Depository Services Program. Web. 13 Sep. 2010. . Lawrence, David. Environmental Impact Assessment: Practical Solutions to Recurrent Problems. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Print. McCartney, M. P., et al. Minimizing the Negative Environmental and Health Impacts of Agricultural Water Resources Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute, 2007. Print. Mwalyosi, Raphael, Ross Hughes, and David Howlett. Introduction Course on Environmental Impact Assessment in Tanzania: Resource Handbook. Tanzania: International Institute for Environment and Development and Institute for Resource Assessment, 1999. Print. “Nature and Purpose of Environmental Impact Assessment.” FAO.org. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1992. Web. 14 Sep. 2010. . Paoletto, Glen. “Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).” gdrc.org. The Global Development Research Center, n.d. Web. 13 Sep. 2010. . Stellman, Jeanne, ed. Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety, Volume 2. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 1998. Print. Read More