ID: 2174
Presenting Author: Elaine Larocque
Session: 703 - Health Impact Assessment to Tackle Misinformation and Foster Participation
Status: pending
The WSR HIA was centered around the community’s worldview of health and wellbeing. This helped to prevent misinformation and promoted community participation in the process.
Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) play a vital role in countering misinformation and disinformation throughout the stages of scoping, assessment, and making recommendations. This presentation will use the Webequie Supply Road (WSR) HIA as a case study example to highlight how Indigenous-led HIAs can ensure relevance to local priorities and avoid colonial framing that misrepresents Indigenous worldviews. During scoping, the WSR HIA promoted transparency by engaging with the community early is multiple ways, clarified objectives, and identified community-specific sources of health information. Inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge to appropriately scope the WSR HIA was vital in centering the assessment around the community’s worldview of health and wellbeing. This proactive communication helped dispel misconceptions and ensured that community concerns were accurately captured. In the assessment phase, the WSR HIA incorporated Indigenous Knowledge together with evidence-based methodologies and interdisciplinary expertise to evaluate potential health impacts, making it harder for misleading narratives to gain traction. By incorporating diverse data sources and validating findings through continued community engagement, the WSR HIA helped accurately capture and reflect community concerns and tailor the corresponding mitigation and enhancement measures to be culturally relevant and resonate with the community. By embedding transparency, validation, and engagement across all stages, the WSR HIA helped to safeguard community discourse and enhance resilience against mis/disinformation.
Ms. Larocque conducts HIAs, identifying and communicating impacts of major projects on determinants of health like air quality, and supports scoping workshops and community engagement for HIAs.
Coauthor 1: Faiza Waheed