ID: 1891
Presenting Author: Katie Hirono
Session: 703 - Health Impact Assessment to Tackle Misinformation and Foster Participation
Status: pending
Community engagement within a health impact assessment of a waste transfer station improved the redesign to avoid health harms, address concerns, clarify risks and build trust.
Waste transfer stations (WTS) are an integral part of waste management but are often perceived as a nuisance (at best) or as harmful (at worst) to health by local communities. In partnership with the Local Authority, we conducted a health impact assessment (HIA) of the redevelopment of a WTS in Hertfordshire, England. The existing WTS had considerable issues including odour and noise, and as such there was community opposition to the facility (including a community opposition group) and distrust in the Local Authority. To address this, we conducted community engagement as part of the HIA that included a scoping workshop and online survey. We advertised the event via a letter drop in local neighbourhoods (c.1,000 letters). A total of six community members and a local Councillor attended the HIA workshop and there were 18 online responses. Whilst the total number of participants was small it should be noted that several of the workshop attendees were part of the larger community opposition group. We also contributed to a follow-up consultation to report back to the community on how their input had been considered. This ensured that communities didn’t just ‘have a say’ but showed how their concerns had been ‘heard’ by decision-makers. While acknowledging the limited participation in the HIA, this approach not only improved the design of the WTS to avoid health impacts, but helped to assuage community concerns, clarified misinformation about the actual risks of the facility, and built trust with the Local Authority.
Dr Katie Hirono is Associate Director of Health & Social Impact at Tetra Tech RPS; an Affiliate at Johns Hopkins University; and Adjunct Fellow at University of New South Wales.
Coauthor 1: Lisa Nelson