RPS GROUP - HUMAN HEALTH IN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT, WHY THE NEW GUIDANCE IS SO IMPORTANT

Until now, there's been no UK guidance on addressing human health within the context of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

The gap in guidance has hampered sustainable development since 2017, as human health has been on the list of factors an EIA should consider, but without clarity as to how.

Here to address that gap is the latest guidance by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA). Released in November 2022 'Effective Scoping of Human Health in Environmental Impact Assessment', and 'Determining Significance for Human Health in Environmental Impact Assessment' set out a clear position on: Scoping wider determinants of health and Robustly assessing them with consistent and transparent methods.

Developed by leading practitioners, academics, and health impact assessment experts, the IEMA 2022 publications answer a variety of fundamental questions for the first time. And we're proud to share that RPS' Ryngan Pyper, Director of Health and Social Impact, is the first author on both of these industry gold standard publications.

Ryngan comments: 'This IEMA 2022 guidance provides long-term certainty for all stakeholders, including developers, impact assessment practitioners, and health stakeholders. And gives much-needed clarity on what is required to achieve sustainable development without unacceptable harm or detriment to the public and society.'

The guidance highlights key learnings from health impact assessment good practice publications. It also extends the guidance where necessary for the EIA context, and signposts out to further detail where appropriate, reinforcing the need to use competent experts in EIA for specialist topics such as health.

Contact:

Ryngan Pyper

Tel: [phone]

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