Health Impact Assessment of Urban Development Project

BACKGROUND: Health impact assessment (HIA) has emerged to identify those activities and policies likely to have major impacts on the health of a population. METHOD: In this research, qualitative method was applied to identifying health determinants that urban man made lake affect on them, formatting and weighing the hierarchy of the factors, calculating AHP, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method for decide and ranking alternatives. RESULTS: According to the results of the study, from the structural determinants point of view, the most positive effect of man-made lake was on Recreational services by 89.5% and the most negative one was on housing. According to intermediary determinants and general average, the most positive effect of lake was on physical activity and quality of air by 88.9% and the most negative one was on noise pollution by 46.7%. Ultimately, considering the positive and negative effects of lake between constructing and not constructing the lake option, the construction option was selected. CONCLUSION: There is substantial potential to improve public health by bringing decision makers’ attention to the health consequences of their actions; city councilpersons, zoning commissioners, and other decision makers typically have little background in health.