Prospects and Perspectives of Health Impact Assessment: A Systematic Review of the Peer-Reviewed Literature From June 2007 to January 2023

Nina Lamprecht; Tobias E Erlanger; Jürg Utzinger; Mirko S Winkler

doi:10.3389/phrs.2024.1606649

Prospects and Perspectives of Health Impact Assessment: A Systematic Review of the Peer-Reviewed Literature From June 2007 to January 2023

Public Health Rev. 2024 Apr 16:45:1606649. doi: 10.3389/phrs.2024.1606649. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Nina Lamprecht^{1

2

3}, Tobias E Erlanger^{1

3}, Jürg Utzinger^{1

3}, Mirko S Winkler^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Allschwil, Switzerland.
² Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), Zürich, Switzerland.
³ University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract

Objectives: In 2008, an analysis investigating health impact assessment (HIA) practice found that only 6% of HIA-related peer-reviewed publications had a focus on low- and medium-developed countries, whereas 94% were conducted in countries with a high or very high development state. We aimed to update and deepen these observations.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review, searching PubMed and Web of Science for HIA-related papers published in the scientific literature from June 2007 to January 2023. Only applied HIA and papers with HIA as a subject were included.

Results: The search yielded 3,036 publications and the final selection consisted of 1,019 publications. The annual number of total publications increased considerably over the past 15 years. Whereas research-driven HIA (n = 460) showed a steep increase, step-by-step HIA (n = 71) did not show a clear trend.

Conclusion: The gap between the number of HIA-related peer-reviewed publications focusing on low/medium and high/very high developed countries has diminished from 6/94 to 11/89. There is a growing tendency to apply the terminology HIA for health impact modelling studies and quantitative health risk assessments.

Keywords: health impact assessment; health inequity; research-driven HIA; step-by-step HIA; systematic review.

Publication types

Systematic Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme), which is a joint funding initiative by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) (grant number 194003).