Thanks, Nicole, can you tell us more about this: "HIA processes and products engage the notion of equity in ways that are currently not exploited in planning and EJ circles"? How do you know what is "exploited" [an odd choice of words!] in planning and EJ circles?
From: "Iroz-Elardo Nicole" <nicole.iroz-elardo@state.or.us>
To: "h+t--friends@chrispy.net" <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 1:17:01 PM
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] HIA Webinar
Hi all. I am the presenter of the HIA webinar being discussed. It is hosted by IBPI which is associated with OTREC and Portland State University - my doctoral institution. It is an offshoot of lessons learned from both my doctoral research and time as an HIA practitioner. My doctoral research takes a broad look at transportation planning, so the webinar will not be bike/ped specific. The webinar was initiated because OTREC provided some doctoral support for the research and this seemed like a good avenue to distribute practice-related findings. This particular webinar will address the wide variation within and between disciplines about meaning, definitions, and methods associated with concepts such as health, equity, and engagement; this often result in conflicts between and within professions mid-HIA due to inappropriate expectations of HIA.
Regarding the statements about social and environmental justice... While my doctoral research does not address civil rights law directly, it is a critique of the extent to which HIA proclaims itself participatory and thus protective of community. HIA assumes that there is value in stakeholder/collaborative engagement; it is an offshoot of what is currently termed "health in all policies" approach in public health which suggests any time you can bring public health evidence in for public consideration, decision-makers are more likely to make a more informed and thus healthier public decision. But make no mistake, HIA is generally informed by a stakeholder process engaging in an even broader stakeholder process. Because of that, all the caveats in the literature about power and stakeholder/collaborative processes apply; stakeholder processes are easily co-opted and are highly dependent on representation, timing, and good facilitation to address power structures. HIA, while!
committed in theory to good process, is still in its infancy in defining and bounding engagement. And community driven HIAs are relatively rare in the U.S.
My research shows that the social justice and community aspects of HIA practice are less a result of stakeholder/participation formats and more a function of explicit HIA values such as a commitment to health equity and broad determinants of health. Through these values, public health professionals are able to identify and advocate for underserved or unorganized communities - particularly in spatially-based plans. It is also important to realize that public health professionals engage in HIAs because they do not see the current NEPA regulatory and federal/state legal structures do not go far enough to protect population health and health equity. And HIA processes and products engage the notion of equity in ways that are currently not exploited in planning and EJ circles - a likely win for vulnerable communities. So HIA may not explicitly address civil rights law (certainly true in most U.S. HIAs), but it engages in the notion of health disparities and thus health, socia!
l, and environmental equity.
The dissertation employs a case-study approach; two of the three cases are HIAs that are centered around non-English EJ populations in the U.S. and thus might be of particular interest to some commenters. It is a reasonably interesting read for a dissertation and publically available through OTREC at http://otrec.us/project/715.
Fun to see this being discussed! Hope to have some of you on the webinar on July 16th. http://otrec.us/events/entry/health_impact_assessment_hia_in_transportation_planning
~Nicole
Nicole Iroz-Elardo, PhD
Portland State University
irozelardo@yahoo.com
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: H+T--Friends Digest, Vol 38, Issue 4 - HIA (Mindell, Jenny)
2. Re: H+T--Friends Digest, Vol 38, Issue 4 - HIA
(mbrenman001@comcast.net)
3. David Ragland Profiled for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Safe Routes to Schools work (Phyllis ORRICK)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:58:44 +0000
From: "Mindell, Jenny" <j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] H+T--Friends Digest, Vol 38, Issue 4 - HIA
To: "h+t--friends@chrispy.net" <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>
Message-ID:
<7354587cd221478c8333e68518d1a139@DB3PR01MB331.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
We may like the concept of evidence-based decision-making but being realistic, political (including planning) decisions are based on a whole range of things.
So most people now aim for 'evidence-informed decision-making', for which HIA is well-suited.
It would be daft to think that planners (or others in local, regional or national government) consider only health when making their decisions.
But the more that the decision-makers are involved with the HIA process, the more likely they are to engage with the recommendations produced.
And I am very surprised by the statement that public health professionals are unaware of social equity or civil rights. Certainly not the case in the UK. And HIA, as accepted across Europe and I thought worldwide, considers both the health impacts and their distribution across the population.
Dr Jennifer Mindell
Clinical senior lecturer
Health and Social Surveys Research Group Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health UCL
1-19 Torrington Place
London WC1E 6BT
Tel. 020 7679 1269 (Internal x41269)
Survey doctor: 07770-537238
Fax 020 7813 0242
Email: j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk
Web: IRIS web page
Journal of Transport and Health: www.elsevier.com/locate/jth
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 12:29:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: mbrenman001@comcast.net
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] webinar on Health Impact Assessment (HIA)
in Transportation Planning
To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>
Message-ID:
<648017716.8220462.1402144198106.JavaMail.root@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Who is putting on this webinar? It appears to be something called IBPI. "The Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation is an exciting center for research and learning that is focused on bicycle and pedestrian travel. IBPI?s aim is to advance bicycling and walking as integral elements of the transportation system in Oregon?s communities." Where's the neutrality and objectivity?
In regard to this statement, "Health impact assessment (HIA) has emerged in the U.S. as a promising way to increase social and environmental justice by addressing health equity within transportation planning," much HIA work does not adequately address social equity and EJ issues. For example, HIA's rarely address Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the environmental justice executive order. They rarely contain legal concepts at all. HIA's are usually conducted by public health people, who have no background in social equity or civil rights. They often perform with an environmentalist bias (see "bicycle innovation" above), which often is in tension with the needs of low income communities and communities of color.
As to this, "It also augments community and stakeholder engagement by providing a forum - usually through an advisory committee - where stakeholders can identify and deliberate about health interests related to the target plan. While HIA advisory committees are diverse by design," much HIA work is conducted solely in English, and the limited English proficiency needs of various demographic groups are not addressed. Another concern with "advisory committees" is that fact that they only provide "advice" which the "planning" entity is not obligated to pay any attention to. A colleague who leads an immigration advocacy group told me a couple of years ago, "I no longer serve on advisory committees because they don't make policy or control anything."
Marc Brenman
mbrenman001@comcast.net
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 18:08:33 +0000 (UTC)
From: mbrenman001@comcast.net
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] H+T--Friends Digest, Vol 38, Issue 4 - HIA
To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>
Cc: j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk
Message-ID:
<1533380969.350750.1402423713482.JavaMail.root@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Here's what I said: "HIA's rarely address Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the environmental justice executive order. They rarely contain legal concepts at all. HIA's are usually conducted by public health people, who have no background in social equity or civil rights. They often perform with an environmentalist bias...much HIA work is conducted solely in English, and the limited English proficiency needs of various demographic groups are not addressed." My comments were focused on the US, where the webinar under discussion is occurring. But prove me wrong in the UK. Quote some HIAs in the UK that discuss the Equality Act (which is under fire in the UK by the Conservative Party) or the equivalent, and environmental justice, and use the languages preferred by demographic groups. This is more than "awareness," since awareness doesn't cure much of anything. I'll be happy to be proved wrong and would love to use those good HIA examples.
In recent work with The City Project in Los Angeles, as funded by the California Endowment, we observed that even those public health organizations and medical professionals who work with minority health disparities rarely engage civil rights law to help solve the challenges. Various professions just seem stuck in their silos. And don't get me started on trying to use epidemiologists as witnesses in environmental just cases. I've never found one who would testify that X environmental insult caused Y adverse effect on a given minority or low income community. They insist upon a scientific standard of proof, which is way higher than the administrative civil rights standard of proof of a preponderance of the evidence.
Marc Brenman
mbrenman001@comcast.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jenny Mindell" <j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk>
To: h+t--friends@chrispy.net
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 1:58:44 AM
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] H+T--Friends Digest, Vol 38, Issue 4 - HIA
We may like the concept of evidence-based decision-making but being realistic, political (including planning) decisions are based on a whole range of things.
So most people now aim for 'evidence-informed decision-making', for which HIA is well-suited.
It would be daft to think that planners (or others in local, regional or national government) consider only health when making their decisions.
But the more that the decision-makers are involved with the HIA process, the more likely they are to engage with the recommendations produced.
And I am very surprised by the statement that public health professionals are unaware of social equity or civil rights. Certainly not the case in the UK. And HIA, as accepted across Europe and I thought worldwide, considers both the health impacts and their distribution across the population.
Dr Jennifer Mindell
Clinical senior lecturer
Health and Social Surveys Research Group Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health UCL
1-19 Torrington Place
London WC1E 6BT
Tel. 020 7679 1269 (Internal x41269)
Survey doctor: 07770-537238
Fax 020 7813 0242
Email: j.mindell@ucl.ac.uk
Web: IRIS web page
Journal of Transport and Health: www.elsevier.com/locate/jth
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 12:29:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: mbrenman001@comcast.net
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] webinar on Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in Transportation Planning
To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>
Message-ID:
<648017716.8220462.1402144198106.JavaMail.root@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Who is putting on this webinar? It appears to be something called IBPI. "The Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation is an exciting center for research and learning that is focused on bicycle and pedestrian travel. IBPI?s aim is to advance bicycling and walking as integral elements of the transportation system in Oregon?s communities." Where's the neutrality and objectivity?
In regard to this statement, "Health impact assessment (HIA) has emerged in the U.S. as a promising way to increase social and environmental justice by addressing health equity within transportation planning," much HIA work does not adequately address social equity and EJ issues. For example, HIA's rarely address Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the environmental justice executive order. They rarely contain legal concepts at all. HIA's are usually conducted by public health people, who have no background in social equity or civil rights. They often perform with an environmentalist bias (see "bicycle innovation" above), which often is in tension with the needs of low income communities and communities of color.
As to this, "It also augments community and stakeholder engagement by providing a forum - usually through an advisory committee - where stakeholders can identify and deliberate about health interests related to the target plan. While HIA advisory committees are diverse by design," much HIA work is conducted solely in English, and the limited English proficiency needs of various demographic groups are not addressed. Another concern with "advisory committees" is that fact that they only provide "advice" which the "planning" entity is not obligated to pay any attention to. A colleague who leads an immigration advocacy group told me a couple of years ago, "I no longer serve on advisory committees because they don't make policy or control anything."
Marc Brenman
mbrenman001@comcast.net
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:52:48 -0700
From: Phyllis ORRICK <phylliso@berkeley.edu>
Subject: [H+T--Friends] David Ragland Profiled for Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Safe Routes to Schools work
To: sph_faculty_open@berkeley.edu, sph_staff_open@berkeley.edu,
"safetrec_staff@lists.berkeley.edu"
<safetrec_staff@lists.berkeley.edu>,
safetrec_students@lists.berkeley.edu, faculty@its.berkeley.edu,
students@its.berkeley.edu, staff@its.berkeley.edu,
h+t--friends@chrispy.net, phaa@berkeley.edu
Message-ID:
<CALuXqV5Wo71QhhptTV_PG+u6FZohLp0oquAhT8c9vahVnE3YYg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi all,
Here is an item with link to a lengthy profile of SafeTREC Director David
Ragland and our team research on health and safety effects of Safe Routes
to School.
Best,
Phyllis
http://safetrec.berkeley.edu/content/david-ragland-rwj-profile
SafeTREC's David Ragland Profiled by RWJ's Active Living Program
In an article titled "Safe Routes to School Examined: How Structural
Changes Around Schools Affect Children's Mobility and Safety: A Profile of
Active Living Research Investigator David R. Ragland, PhD, MPH," the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research program discusses the
origins of SafeTREC director and founder David Ragland's work in traffic
safety in general and his and SafeTREC researchers' series of studies
evaluating various effects of Safe Routes to School projects, including:
- Safe Routes to School Safety & Mobility Analysis
<http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/5455454c>
- Ten Years Later: Examining the Long-Term Impact of the California Safe
Routes to School Program
<http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8m59g6vx> (presented
at TRB 2014 Annual Meeting)
Links
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Profiles David Ragland for Safe Routes to
School
<http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/2014/06/safe-routes-to-school-examined--how-structural-changes-around-sc.html>
--
Phyllis Orrick
Communications Director
Safe Transportation Research and Education Center
<http://www.safetrec.berkeley.edu/> (SafeTREC)
2614 Dwight Way
UC Berkeley
Berkeley CA 94720-7374
510-643-1779
@transsafe <https://twitter.com/#%21/transsafe>
@trbhealth <https://twitter.com/#%21/trbhealth>
Skype: pmorrick
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