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Description
The Health Impact Assessment site on Community Commons is an online library and hub for all things related to health impact assessment (HIA) and Health in All Policies. It hosts a searchable, filterable database of hundreds of completed HIAs, a national map to explore them by geography, vital conditions, and priority populations, and collections of guides, briefs, datasets, and training resources to help users conduct and apply HIAs in practice. Designed for communities, agencies, and practitioners, the site supports integrating health, equity, and well‑being considerations into policies, plans, and investments across sectors such as housing, transportation, planning, and education.
Questions this resource can help answer
- Has anyone done a health impact assessment on a project like mine (e.g., road redesign, zoning change, housing development, school closure)?
- What health and equity impacts have other communities found for similar policies or projects?
- How did other teams structure their HIA process—screening, scoping, methods, and community engagement?
- What kinds of recommendations (and evidence) have been effective in influencing decisions in similar contexts?
- What tools, templates, and checklists can I use to plan and carry out my own HIA?
- Are there examples I can cite in grants, reports, or policy memos to show that HIA has been used successfully elsewhere?
How do I use this resource?
To use the Health Impact Assessment hub on Community Commons, start by exploring the HIA database and map to find examples similar to your work—filter by state, topic (e.g., transportation, housing), decision type, or priority population, then open individual entries to read summaries and download full reports. Next, visit the Resources/Toolkits sections to access step‑by‑step guides, checklists, and templates you can adapt for your own HIA or Health in All Policies effort. Use the training materials and briefs to build your and your partners’ understanding of HIA concepts and equity approaches, and draw on example HIAs (with citation) when writing grants, proposals, or policy memos to show that similar assessments have informed decisions elsewhere.
Pro tips
-Start with a concrete decision you’re facing (e.g., a road diet, rezoning, school siting) and use that language in the search bar and filters (sector, decision type, population).
-Once you find a close match, study its screening, scoping, methods, and recommendation formats and adapt those structures directly for your project.
-In the resources/toolkits sections, download checklists, scopes of work, and report templates; modify them rather than writing new ones—this saves time and keeps you aligned with field standards.
-When adapting an HIA, consider differences in laws, governance, demographics, and markets between that community and yours, and adjust recommendations accordingly.
Resource information
Website
Annually
Local, United States
Technical specifications
The HIA hub on Community Commons is essentially a curated, structured library of health impact assessments and related materials. The site aggregates completed HIAs from multiple sources (practitioners, agencies, academic centers, and existing HIA repositories) and catalogs them using a common metadata scheme—such as geography, sector/topic (e.g., transportation, housing), decision type, populations of focus, and year. Each entry is reviewed and tagged so it can appear in both a searchable database and a national map. In parallel, the site’s toolkits, guides, and training materials are compiled from recognized HIA leaders and organizations, then organized into thematic collections (e.g., methods, equity, community engagement). The result is a standardized, searchable resource that lets users quickly find and compare HIAs and practical tools without having to search across dozens of separate websites.
