Community Initiatives

As defined by the CDC, Health in All Policies (HiAP) is a collaborative approach that integrates and articulates health considerations into policymaking across sectors to improve the health of all communities and people. HiAP recognizes that health is created by a multitude of factors beyond healthcare and, in many cases, beyond the scope of traditional public health activities.  

Partnerships with local groups allow this work to take place across a multitude of spaces. BEAL’s partnership with the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization to bring health metrics into the transportation project process is a prime example of this. 

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool, providing information on the potential health impacts of a policy, plan, project, or program to decision makers (commonly outside of the health sector) prior to the decision being made. The intention of doing an HIA is to encourage public participation in a democratic, decision-making process when feasible, and to bring the potential health impacts (whether positive or negative) to the attention of decision-makers who then have to weigh this information with other factors of the decision being made. HIA can be used to choose between potential alternatives identified by stakeholders or to make recommendations of ways a proposal can be improved to limit harmful health impacts and promote positive health outcomes. 

HIA is a democratic process used to promote health in all policies and incorporates a broad definition of health and the social determinants of health to promote health equity. HIAs have been done all over the United States starting in the early 1990s on a wide variety of topics including transportation projects and plans, economic policy, housing and redevelopment projects, agricultural and nutrition policies, energy and sustainable growth plans, and many more. Each HIA is different and the beauty of the practice of HIA is that as long as the overall process is followed, the data sources and analytic methods used can be changed to meet the needs of each HIA.