ICMM publishes guidance on HIA

The International Council on Mining and Metals has published its guidance on HIA. It can be found at

http://www.icmm.com/page/35525/new-guidance-on-health-impact-assessment-released

IOM with the support of Martin Birley and Judith Ball - with peer review from Mark Divall, Ben Harris-Roxas, Francesca Viliani and Aaron Wernham - helped ICMM produce this guide.

A few of the interesting and innovative things in the guide are that:

• It provides a developed and developing country perspective with a strong focus on social determinants.
• It advocates for the mainstreaming of iterative 'first look' in-house rapid HIAs that are undertaken by HSE teams during the early internal feasibility and planning stages of a project that are followed up with more formal external commissioned HIAs and ESHIAs.
• It incorporates a competency framework for commissioners to consider when recruiting HIA consultants.
• It develops a Hierarchy of Health Enhancement that sits alongside the existing Hierarchy of Health Risk Mitigation that is used in Occupational Risk Assessment and ESHIAs when considering mitigation and enhancement measures.
• It highlights the close links between occupational health risk assessment and (community) health impact assessment.