Integration of health into urban spatial planning through impact assessment: Identifying governance and policy barriers and facilitators

Carmichael, Laurence; Barton, Hugh; Gray, Selena; Lease, Helen; Pilkington, Paul

Abstract

This article presents the results of a review of literature examining the barriers and facilitators in integrating health in spatial planning at the local, mainly urban level, through appraisals. Our literature review covered the UK and non UK experiences of appraisals used to consider health issues in the planning process. We were able to identify four main categories of obstacles and facilitators including first the different knowledge and conceptual understanding of health by different actors/stakeholders, second the types of governance arrangements, in particular partnerships, in place and the political context, third the way institutions work, the responsibilities they have and their capacity and resources and fourth the timeliness, comprehensiveness and inclusiveness of the appraisal process. The findings allowed us to draw some lessons on the governance and policy framework regarding the integration of health impact into spatial planning, in particular considering the pros and cons of integrating health impact assessment (HIA) into other forms of impact assessment of spatial planning decisions such as environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environment assessment (SEA). In addition, the research uncovered a gap in the literature that tends to focus on the mainly voluntary HIA to assess health outcomes of planning decisions and neglect the analysis of regulatory mechanisms such as EIA and SEA. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Nov 3, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 6, 2016
• Journal: Environmental Impact Assessment Review
• Print ISSN: 0195-9255
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 187-194
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2011.08.003
• Keywords: human health, spatial planning, impact assessment, policy integration, development planning
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/950707
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2011.08.003
• Contract Date: Apr 6, 2016