- What are the objectives of the proposal?
- Who are the key stakeholders?
- What is the geography?
- What data do we need?
The following key questions need to be considered when determining the scope of the HIA:
What are the objectives?
These should be set out in plain language that reflects the reality of the situation. The following examples may be chosen:
- To establish whether and to what degree this strategy / policy / programme will impact on the health and health inequalities (of the defined population)
- To establish whether the impacts will be positive, negative or neutral and the scale of same
- To establish whether different population groups (e.g. based on ethnicity or levels of deprivation) will experience different health effects. Consider the risk of creating or increasing a health inequality.
Who are the key stakeholders and how to consult them?
- A stakeholder mapping exercise will help you to identify those stakeholders who need to be properly engaged in the HIA process. Equally, you need to identify those who only require updates for information.
- You may wish to undertake a small consultation exercise in certain circumstances (for example, hold a focus group with local population). This process can be used to demonstrate to those who challenge a proposal or policy that sufficient consultation was carried out in a robust manner.
What is the geography?
It is crucial that the geography affected by the strategy, policy or programme is well defined and recorded on the HIA Template. This may be the whole of Staffordshire, at a district / parish level or wards or part of wards but should be clearly identified. The HIA should also consider the impacts to any geography not initially affected by the proposal but likely to be affected in the future, for example a population migrating to another village to use facilities.
What data/evidence do we need to be aware of?
Are we aware of any evidence that leads us to believe that the proposed strategy, policy or programme will impact on health and health inequalities?
Consider the current and projected demographics of the population potentially affected, including profiles of deprivation, education and economic status.
Also consider current state of the population's health and wellbeing and future trends and the main issues affecting health in the population.
Seek information on evidence of health inequalities and the communities' perceptions of their health.
Stakeholders will be key to this element of the scoping and may have access to evidence, data and other sources of information that prove invaluable to the production of the HIA.