The Four Noble Truths of HIA and EIA

Abstract

The author shares some views on health impact assessment (HIA) and environmental impact assessment (EIA)using the Four Noble Truths approach. “Suffer” of HIA includes conflicts between industries and people, people and people,people and academia, people and government agencies; HIA being more expensive and difficult; industries moving toother countries; and worst of all, the growing pollution. “Samudaya” of HIA includes social and health inequity resultingfrom developmental projects; consultants conducting EIA directly received money from industries hence having conflict ofinterest; consultants conducting EIA outsourcing health experts from universities to help in health issues; HIA was done on aproject-by-project basis, not on an area basis; no strategic environmental assessment (SEA); city planning was outdated andnot strictly enforced; people hardly contribute to HIA processes, especially monitoring and evaluation (M&E); consultants andindustries did not tell all good and bad about the project; the mitigation measures were not comprehensive and were notconsistently done; M&E were too technical for people to contribute; and most decisions came from central government, whilelocal authorities felt powerless and helpless. “Nirodha” of HIA is to quit using HIA or to improve it significantly. “Magga”of HIA includes approaches to overcome the aforementioned samudaya. Other suggestions to improve HIA are disclosureof EIA/ HIA report before it is approved; increased more HIA practitioners; raised people awareness and knowledge viamedias and other ways; reconciliation; punishment for those bad industries; rewards for those good industries; replace healthconcepts with well-being concepts; using community HIA; and consideration of 9 groups of health determinants proposedby the National Health Commission Office (NHCO) in every project.

Key words: Health impact assessment (HIA), Environmental impact assessment (EIA), The Four Noble Truths