HIA_City_Plus

Health Impact Assessment in urban development_Plus

Research project on health impact assessment in urban development and validation in the model cities Bochum and Potsdam

On 1 April 2025, the BMFTR-funded joint research project „Health impact assessment in urban development_Plus“ under the direction of the Institute for Urban Research, Planning and Communication (ISP) at University of Applied Sciences Erfurt  and Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW). The goal of this three-year project is to build on the work carried out in the previous project „HIA_City“ (https://isp.fh-erfurt.de/gfa-stadt) demonstrator developed for use in municipal urban development practice. In collaboration with researchers from the ISP at Erfurt University of Applied Sciences and Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, local planning and health stakeholders in the model cities of Bochum and Potsdam will be empowered to make a decisive contribution to creating healthy living environments and reducing social and health inequalities.

Previous research results and the reason for the validation research

As part of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research-funded collaborative research project ‘Health impact assessment in urban development’ (HIA_City) under the funding guideline ‘Verbesserung der Lebensqualität in Stadt und Land durch soziale Innovationen’ (FH-Sozial 2018), a demonstrator has been developed to enable the integration and application of health impact assessment (HIA) into urban development projects in German municipalities. The demonstrator consists of a phase model that links the steps of HIA with the stages of municipal planning projects and highlights the cooperation between planning and health authorities, as well as an online tool designed to support this efficiently. The HIA-demonstrator is to be applied and further developed as part of a validation research project in real, informal planning processes taking place in the model cities of Bochum and Potsdam, as well as in other local authorities where appropriate. 

Project goal of GFA_Stadt_Plus

The planned applications within the framework of validation research are intended to identify any potentially negative and health-related impacts of planning projects at the earliest possible stage, so that these can be effectively mitigated. At the same time, existing and anticipated positive effects on the health and quality of life of the local population are to be identified, maintained and enhanced. The primary target groups of the research project are stakeholders in municipal administration; in particular, town planning departments with their various sections (covering city-wide, informal and formal planning tasks) and public health departments play an important role in the context of health promotion and the implementation of the HIA. The validation research also takes up a key objective of the preceding research project „HIA_City“ by involving public health service stakeholders more actively in planning projects, bringing them into structured collaboration with the relevant planning authorities, and empowering them to contribute to planning procedures through meaningful statements. Furthermore, the process can contribute to the creation of a healthy living environment and the reduction of health inequalities among the urban population.

Outlook for exploitation and application

Once the validation research has been completed, the fully developed demonstrator is to be made available to interested municipalities and planning stakeholders free of charge and with minimal additional effort. Various deployment options are available for this purpose, such as collaboration with a regional or national institution that offers the online tool as a central point of access for interested stakeholders. Another option is the decentralised use and publication of the software code, which enables interested municipalities to adapt the application to their own requirements. The municipalities involved in the validation project have the advantage of receiving guidance and support during the testing of the HIA-demonstrator. Furthermore, the educational programme already developed in the previous research project, focusing on ‘HIA in urban development’, is to be expanded and further developed in close collaboration with planning and health authorities, in order to raise awareness of health issues among other local planning stakeholders and to establish a ‘HIA culture’.

Areas of Action

• Validation of the research results from the predecessor project "HIA_City"
  Further development of the HIAdemonstrator (stage model, interactive online tool) to ensure low-threshold and user-friendly application in municipal urban development processes
   
• Sustainable knowledge transfer
  Establishment of the HIA in municipal practice through the provision of training courses and conference presentations
   
• Exploitation & transfer
  Development of an exploitation concept to ensure successful implementation in practice following the conclusion of the research project

Scientific contributions from the research project

• Guideline for the practical implementation of HIA
  Compilation of the results obtained in the form of a practical guideline for politics, practice and academia.
   
• Sustainable knowledge transfer in academia and practice
  Development of a training programme led by experts from the health and urban planning sectors to introduce the interdisciplinary application of GFA, as well as the publication of specialist articles in academic journals.