health impact assessment of greenspace - a guide
Guidance on undertaking a health impact assessment (HIA) of greenspace projects (including greenspace policies, strategies, plans, frameworks, programmes and projects) has been developed by greenspace scotland and partners.
download the guide
Developed by greenspace scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IoM), this guide will help greenspace, health and other practitioners to assess the health and equity impacts of greenspace projects and use this information to minimise any negative and maximise positive impacts. The guide will also be a valuable tool in assisting people to demonstrate the role of greenspace in improving both mental, physical and community health.
Health Impact Assessment of greenspace - a guide
why we developed the HIA guide
what is health impact assessment?
key findings from the critical literature review
who was involved in developing the guide
Health Impact Assessment of greenspace – a guide
The guide has been written to help people conduct a health impact assessment (HIA) of greenspace (whether these are greenspace policies, strategies, plans, frameworks, programmes and projects); it:
- provides background information on greenspace
- outlines the current greenspace policy context in Scotland
- reviews international research evidence on greenspace and health
- suggests some questions to help apply this evidence to specific greenspace or greenspace-related proposals
- outlines how to use this evidence to do a HIA
- provides short case studies describing completed HIAs of greenspace
- highlights sources of data and further information on greenspace
why we developed the HIA guide
Previous work by greenspace scotland and partners indentified important links between health and greenspace, relating to mental, physical and community health. This project came about because both greenspace and health professionals felt that guidance on the health and equity impacts of greenspace would contribute to greater recognition of the role of greenspace in improving health and a greater emphasis on health greenspace in proposals.
what is health impact assessment?
Policy decisions in a variety of areas such as education, employment, transport, greenspace, housing, finance and welfare impact on health. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) uses a range of methods and approaches to help identify potential or actual health impacts of policies and uses this information to minimise any negative and maximise positive impacts. HIA is a fairly new concept and debates are ongoing about various aspects of its application and appropriate methodologies. There is growing national and international support for incorporating HIA into policy-making processes and there have been strong endorsements by the UK government.
HIA can range from a rapid appraisal to an in-depth piece of research, should ideally be prospective but may be retrospective, and may employ both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection. The adoption of HIA by decision-makers, and steps to incorporate it into relevant policy development processes, is important if we are to begin to positively affect the broad social determinants of health and impact in a more dramatic and holistic way on the upstream influences on health.
Health impact assessment guides have also been developed for housing and transport. For more information about the Scottish Health Impact Assessment Network
key findings from the critical literature review
The guide offers an overview of the best available international scientific evidence on the health impacts (both positive and negative) of greenspace. The focus of the review was to identify and explore the links between greenspace and physical, mental and social health and wellbeing.
- The evidence demonstrates a clear positive relationship between greenspaces and health, although the mechanisms which generate these positive effects are not always clear.
- For physical exercise, the value of greenspaces as places to exercise is unquestionable. However, although people who use parks regularly appear to take more exercise, access to greenspace does not appear to be the key variable for explaining levels of physical exercise.
- On mental health, there is compelling evidence for the restorative effects of greenspaces. But the evidence base is insufficient to answer more detailed questions about different spaces and populations.
- In terms of social health, the review shows that greenspaces are one of the few remaining spaces that are available to all. Surveys show that greenspaces are important as places of memory, and are closely associated with neighbourhood identity.
The full literature review can be downloaded here and the summary document here
who was involved in developing the guide
A steering group, with representatives from greenspace scotland, NHS Health Scotland, Scottish National Heritage, Glasgow Centre for Population Health, NHS Lothian, the Scottish Health Impact Assessment Network, and Raploch Urban Regeneration Company developed the project.
The critical literature review was undertaken by the University of York and the guidance was developed by the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IoM).
The project was funded by NHS Health Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage.
tell us what you think of the guide and how you are using it – email us at info@greenspacescotland.org.uk
