Terminology

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is developing and implementing different types of Impact Assessment in Finland:

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) with a focus on environment

To identify their impacts on environmental health, this type of HIA focuses on policies and projects that have effects on the physical environment, such as noise, smell and the pollution of air, soil and water.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA)

SIA aims to identify and assess social consequences caused by projects, plans or programmes. While HIA as defined above only refers to the identification of physical health hazards, SIA also covers the assessment of the social and psychological determinants of health.

HIA and SIA are statutory processes in Finland. See application.

Other human-oriented impact assessment approaches include:

HIA with a broad definition of health

With the Health 2015 public health programme, work was started on the development of HIA based on a broad definition of health. This type of HIA also covers the social and psychological aspects of health.

Health Inequalities Impact Assessment (HIIA)

A greater emphasis has recently been placed on health inequalities in HIA. Previously HIA has not enabled an adequate assessment of impacts on different population groups.

Gender Impact Assessment and Child Impact Assessment

As suggested by their names, these types of impact assessment target specific groups of people. They aim to develop ways to identify impacts on different groups, which other types of assessment partly fail to do.

Human Impact Assessment (HuIA)

HuIA is a new concept that refers to integrated impact assessment. Given its independence from the professional and educational background of people involved in impact assessment and the related administrative sector, the concept has proved useful in multicultural and multiprofessional co-operation.