Health Impact Assesment

As Nashville is increasingly recognized nationally as a great place to live, making decisions with health in mind can ensure we build a city that supports healthy living for all residents.

Nashville's built environments -such as our neighborhoods, public spaces and transportation networks - are shaped by policies and have profound impacts on health and our quality of life.

Communities Putting Prevention to Work is using Health Impact Assessments (HIA) to inform decision makers about the potential health consequences of proposed policies, plans and projects. Most importantly HIAs offer recommendations on how to augment current decision making processes.

HIA is a systematic way of addressing the public health implications of policies, plans, and programs that are developed without an explicit health focus. 

By bringing health into the discussion during the formation of policies, plans, and projects we can help ensure that they promote healthy living, and at the very least do not have unintentional negative consequences for the public's health.