By: Addressing health disparities in health care service delivery and planning requires a solid understanding of key barriers to equitable access to high quality care and the specific needs of health-disadvantaged populations. And this requires an array of effective and practical planning tools.
HEIA is one part of the repertoire of equity-driven planning tools. It analyzes the potential impact of service, program or policy changes on health disparities and/or health-disadvantaged populations. It can both help to plan new services, policy development or other initiatives or assess existing programmes.
HEIA is not for all purposes — for example, it is not as well suited for needs assessment, measuring and tracking action on equity, programme and service evaluation, or strategic planning. Rather, HEIA is often seen as ‘first-pass’ screening tool.
It came out of broader health impact assessments, which have been increasingly used in many jurisdictions in the last 15 years. The more specific focus of HEIA arose as increasing policy attention to social determinants of health and health disparities highlighted the need to incorporate an equity focus into planning. At the same time, the need for shorter and more focused processes – sometimes called Rapid HIA — had been recognized.
This page provides links to leading jurisdictions that have developed and implemented HEIA and to expert reports and other resources on HIA in general that are relevant to equity-based planning and policy development.
