What Can Health Impact Assessment Add to Comparative Risk Assessment in Decision-Making? (Commentary)

Beginning of article

Kjellstrom et al. make a very valid point by advising that comparative risk assessment (CRA) should be used to describe different health risks according to their common source (or driving source). This new use of CRA would inform about the health impacts of existing policies, such as transport policies, and about important health risks that may be overlooked by these policies.

The authors' recommendation that CRA should be combined with health impact assessment (HIA) outlines the benefits of CRA, but says relatively little about what HIA (HIA) can add to the combination (apart from engaging with stakeholders). This information is relevant for those who may consider using the combination of the two methods and is the focus of this commentary.

HIA is a systematic methodology used to inform about the health relevance of policy decisions. Quantitative assessments of risks, such as CRAs, are used in one of the stages of HIA.

HIA begins by …