Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is an approach and “a process which systematically judges the potential, and sometimes unintended, effects of a project, programme, plan, policy, or strategy on the health of a population and the distribution of those effects within the population” (Winkler et al., 2021: 3). In addressing any potential health impacts, HIA creates an opportunity to inform projects/programmes/policies in order to improve population health and advance health equity. The HIA process allows for a strengthening of measures from the project/ programme/ policy found to be working to the benefit of population health, as well as address any potential negative/ unintended health impacts. HIAs include an opportunity for public participation as part of the Analysis stage, to inform the HIA with lived experience from those who would potentially be affected by the project/ policy/ programme under assessment.

HIA-IM project A four-year project called Development of a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches to Tackling Health Inequalities (HIA-IM) (O'Mullane et al., 2024) commenced early 2023 in University College Cork. The project is led by Monica O’Mullane with Tara Kenny working as Postdoctoral researcher and Kirsty Nash as Research Assistant. The purpose of the research study in HIA-IM is to examine and explore the practice/ doing of HIA currently in Ireland, with a view informing and strengthening the practice of HIA across local and national policy development. In order to learn from the practice of HIA, two HIAs are being conducted within the HIA-IM project. The first one is on the Cork City Development Plan (20222028) during the year 2024. The second HIA is on the Climate Action Plan, in the year 2025. The research study uses implementation science frameworks to examine the barriers and enablers to doing the HIAs. The study is underpinned by an action research approach (Bradbury, 2022), which allows space for co-learning in doing the HIA with members of the HIA Steering and Working Groups. These governance structures are created for each of the two HIAs being done within HIAIM. The project is working towards iteratively co-creating a contextualised implementation model, built primarily from the lived experience of the Steering Group and Working Group members of the two HIAs. The Institute of Public Health Ireland HIA guidance is being used in the process of the two HIAs (Pyper et al., 2021), as well as learnings from other countries that carry out HIAs routinely including Wales, Scotland, England, and New South Wales in Australia.

The public engagement event was organised as part of the HIA being carried out on the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028). The purpose of the event was to create an opportunity for the public, specifically people living in Cork, to have their say on the topic and focus of the HIA being carried out on the Core Strategy of the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028). The event was an opportunity for participants to respond to questions in the group work at the event, drawing on their own lived experience, on the potential positive and negative/ unintended health impacts that the Core Strategy could have on people living in Cork. The public event generated data that will be used in the Analysis stage, as part of the HIA stagiest process (Pyper et al. 2021), of the HIA being carried out on the Cork City Development Plan (20222028). HIA-IM researchers are members of the HIA team carrying out the HIA.