Dear friends and colleagues,

We knew you wouldn’t want to miss these timely announcements about the HIA Practitioners Workshop (formerly HIA of the Americas) and two webinars on key components of the HIA process: community participation and incorporating equity. We hope to build on these conversations with future webinars on equity approaches to Heath Impact Assessment and Healthy Public Policy research. Stay tuned for announcements about future webinar topics!

Equity and HIA Webinar 

Please join us for a webinar we’ll be conducting on Equity and HIA on January 27 from 1pm-2:30pm ET l 10am-11:30am PT.

Although equity is a core value of Health Impact Assessment, practitioners and evaluators have found that many HIAs could be improved by taking a more intentional and thorough approach to advancing equity. To help guide HIA practitioners, evaluators, and equity advocates, the Equity Workgroup of the Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment (SOPHIA) recently released Equity Metrics for Health Impact Assessment Practice.
 
The interactive webinar will introduce the theoretical underpinnings that guide an equity-focused approach to HIA practice. Participants will learn about measurable ways that equity can be integrated into each step of the HIA, as described in the Equity Metrics, and will discuss how an intentional focus on equity would change the approach to conducting an HIA and those engaged in the process. Examples from HIAs that have addressed equity concerns will also be presented.
 
Click here to register for this webinar hosted by the Health Impact Project. 
 

Webinar on Newly Released Community Participation in HIA Evaluation 

Please join us for an upcoming webinar about a just released report on the Community Participation in Health Impact Assessments: A National Evaluation [check out the executive summary, full report, and appendices].
 
The first of its kind study provides new insights on the level of community participation in HIAs in the U.S., the impact of community participation on the success of HIAs, and the use of HIA as a means to enhance civic agency. Our findings - based on survey and in-depth case study analysis - send a strong message to the HIA field that investment in higher levels of community participation pays off in higher levels of civic agency, such as improved individual civic skills and increased capacity for collective action. This evaluation also found that higher levels of community participation showed greater odds of an HIA impacting decision-making. 
 
The evaluation intends to inform the work of HIA practitioners, and is relevant to researchers and organizations intending to authentically engage community members in addressing policy, program, or planning solutions. 
 
HIP is hosting a webinar to share the evaluation’s very exciting and insightful findings on January 28 from 2pm-3:30pm ET l 11am-12:30pm PT. Please register here for the webinar, and we’ll follow-up with details soon.

Register Now: HIA Practitioner Workshop

SOPHIA's HIA Practitioner Workshop (formerly HIA of the Americas) will take place March 7-8, 2016 at The California Endowment in Oakland, CA. The Workshop is intended for current practitioners of Health Impact Assessment interested in strategic field building. Attendees at the two-day workshop will learn and share ideas through presentations, and further the practice of HIA in small working groups. The draft agenda is now available on the SOPHIA website. 
 
The objectives of this two-day workshop are to:

• Build a community of HIA practitioners by offering an intimate forum to network and share ideas and tools that elevate the practice of HIA; and
• Promote excellence in HIA by sharing best practices, tackling challenging HIA related issues, and disseminating resources and work products developed by the working groups.