ID: 1779
Presenting Author: Lauren Stahl
Session: 604 - Everything Everywhere All at Once: Harnessing Holistic Impact Assessment
Status: pending
This presentation explores the challenges and opportunities in communicating a holistic summary of effects on health and well-being within impact assessments.
Health impact assessments conducted as part of environmental assessments seek to answer: “How will the Project affect the health and well-being of my community?” These assessments evaluate multiple determinants of health and well-being such as social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions, often resulting in siloed information or independent assessments. To assess health and well-being holistically, a holistic assessment involves combining the positive and adverse key findings from the independent assessments to produce an overall conclusion. However, when attempting to synthesize these findings into a single, holistic narrative, there is a risk of inadvertently generating misinformation. This can occur because various factors such as data availability, the perceived importance of positive versus adverse effects, and differences across population demographics, can skew the overall story.
This presentation will address the challenges of communicating a balanced, holistic narrative about the effects of industrial development projects on health and social well-being. It will offer recommendations for conducting holistic assessments and discuss methods to improve the accuracy and transparency of information provided.
Lauren Stahl is a Social Scientist working in environmental consulting. Lauren has an educational and professional background in public health.
Coauthor 1: Vilma Gayoso-Haro