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Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed

Within the member states of the United Nations 190 of 193 have regulated Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) which is a systematic process to prevent and mitigate the potential environmental impacts of industry development projects before these occur. However, the routine and comprehensive assess...

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Autores principales: Harris, Patrick, Viliani, Francesca, Spickett, Jeff
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25608592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120101044
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author Harris, Patrick
Viliani, Francesca
Spickett, Jeff
author_facet Harris, Patrick
Viliani, Francesca
Spickett, Jeff
author_sort Harris, Patrick
collection PubMed
description Within the member states of the United Nations 190 of 193 have regulated Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) which is a systematic process to prevent and mitigate the potential environmental impacts of industry development projects before these occur. However, the routine and comprehensive assessment of health impacts within EIAs remains underdeveloped. Focusing, as an example, on the risks to global health from the global shift in the mining industry towards Low and Middle Income Countries LMIC), this viewpoint details why connecting with EIA is an essential task for the health system. Although existing knowledge is out of date in relation to global practice we identify how health has been included, to some extent, in High Income Country EIAs and the institutional requirements for doing so. Using arguments identified by industry themselves about requiring a ‘social license to operate’, we conclude that EIA regulations provide the best current mechanism to ensure health protection is a core aspect in the decision making process to approve projects.
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spelling pubmed-43069102015-02-02 Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed Harris, Patrick Viliani, Francesca Spickett, Jeff Int J Environ Res Public Health Opinion Within the member states of the United Nations 190 of 193 have regulated Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) which is a systematic process to prevent and mitigate the potential environmental impacts of industry development projects before these occur. However, the routine and comprehensive assessment of health impacts within EIAs remains underdeveloped. Focusing, as an example, on the risks to global health from the global shift in the mining industry towards Low and Middle Income Countries LMIC), this viewpoint details why connecting with EIA is an essential task for the health system. Although existing knowledge is out of date in relation to global practice we identify how health has been included, to some extent, in High Income Country EIAs and the institutional requirements for doing so. Using arguments identified by industry themselves about requiring a ‘social license to operate’, we conclude that EIA regulations provide the best current mechanism to ensure health protection is a core aspect in the decision making process to approve projects. MDPI 2015-01-20 2015-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4306910/ /pubmed/25608592 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120101044 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Opinion
Harris, Patrick
Viliani, Francesca
Spickett, Jeff
Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title_full Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title_fullStr Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title_short Assessing Health Impacts within Environmental Impact Assessments: An Opportunity for Public Health Globally Which Must Not Remain Missed
title_sort assessing health impacts within environmental impact assessments: an opportunity for public health globally which must not remain missed
topic Opinion
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25608592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120101044
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