MODULE 4

Introduction: a Community Health Impact Assessment

This module is designed to support community leaders, organisers and everyday folx work towards producing a Community Health Impact Assessment.

By now, you’ve learned about framings of health that are rooted in social justice, intersectionality, and an ecological model of health - that we can only be healthy when the systems around us are healthy; inviting the question of how healthy our political, commercial, built, social systems are at the neighbourhood level.

This module is focused on how you organise, asset and network map, develop a theory of change, and work alongside your community’s leaders and organisations.

At this stage we offer two options:

If you’re doing this as a learning exercise then there’s the ability to proceed straight through to lessons. If you want to proceed unsupported and are doing this we obviously wouldn’t stop you. However, much of the learning materials are designed with human interaction in mind.
If you’re doing this because you’re actively wanting to bring it to your community then we offer a supported route (this naturally takes a little longer). We do offer bursaries to organisers looking to steward this on behalf of their community and every year we give out 3 justice grants to cover production costs.

If you want to do this module in support of the Centric Lab team we ask that you complete the below form so that we can get to know you and plan for our 1-to-1.

Support Form

A FEW REMINDERS

An HIA is not a legal or policy requirement, however it can be used as a key policy lever to use where there are significant impacts to both the health of a population and the distribution of those effects within the population.
Going through Module 3 is because you are invested in baselining your community’s health to increase awareness and competence for future advocacy. This is a pathway to enacting a sense of justice in and for your community. You actively are wanting to challenge the systems around you to do better.
HIAs are mainly conducted by Public Health practitioners from within local authorities or by third party contracted companies, using generic indicators, checklists and data sets. This programme is about challenging that notion and thus is likely to mean that politics may exist when looking to introduce something new.
This area of work is a site of structural harm by systems that are oftentimes unable and unwilling to change, it is not a place for everyone. We have a responsibility to safeguard at this level, this will be a difficult process, and we must be prepared for nothing or no response from local authority and developers.