ID: 1986
Presenting Author: Valentina Cavanna
Session: 703 - Health Impact Assessment to Tackle Misinformation and Foster Participation
Status: pending
Different national approaches to HIA reveal its multiple roles in promoting participation, prevention, accountability, and legal empowerment in decision making.
HIA has emerged as a crucial tool to integrate health considerations into decision-making, yet its implementation varies widely across countries. While the underlying rationale - to anticipate the health consequences of plans or projects - is shared, the legal foundations and methodological depth differ significantly. In some systems, HIA is a mandatory requirement embedded in environmental assessment frameworks; in other cases, it remains volutary or experimental. These differences extend to the scope of application and the degree of stakeholder engagement: some jurisdictions promote participatory models involving communities, experts and affected groups, whle others rely mostly on highly technical, expert-driven assessments. Methodologies also diverge, ranging from qualitative analyses grounded in narrative evidence to complex quantitative models. Such diversity reveals the flexibility of HIA as a policy instrument. However, limited institutional exchange and the persistence of national silos often prevent successful models from circulating beyond their original context. Yet, when effectively designed and pplied, HIA may serve not only as a preventive tool - helping avoid health risks, conflicts and legal disputes - but also as a means to strenghten accountability, including in judicial and even criminal proceedings. In this context, the comparative perspective is essential to understanding HIA's potential as both a governance mechanism and a form of legal empowerment.
PhD at Turin University with a thesis on health in environmental proceedings and HIA; research fellow and adjunct professor at Turin University; lawyer in Environmental Law