Health impact assessment in Australia

A recently published paper which describes the status of health impact assessment (HIA) in Australia in 2003 provides a vantage point from which to see how rapidly HIA is developing across the country. When the report Health impact assessment: a tool for policy development in Australia was released in 2002 there was little use of HIA beyond environmental management applications. By late 2005, most states and territories are undertaking a variety of HIA activities either routinely or experimentally. Traditional divisions between environmental project-level applications that focus on health protection and public health policy-level applications that focus on health promotion, are largely disappearing. These are being replaced by a growing understanding of the need for complementarity in approach and cross-sectoral working. This is not to say that there are high levels of activity, but both awareness and action are increasing.

Exploring the application of Health Impact Assessment in neighbourhood renewal

This thesis explores the role that Health Impact Assessment can play in social exclusion policy contexts focusing specifically on Victoria's Neighbourhood Renewal Scheme. The findings demonstrate that it can play an important role if due attention is given to contextual and procedural factors both within community settings and within government.

Imperatives for policy health impact assessment : perspectives, positions, power relation

The thesis disturbs the seeming secure foundations of the dominant realist tales about the imperatives for the development of Health Impact Assessment, a relatively new policy device used within governments to consider the effects of policies on health. Foucauldian genealogical approaches are used to provide alternative, non-linear and non-definitive accounts.

Environmental impact assessment of the sewage outfall at Davis Station, East Antarctica

During the summer 2009/10, an environmental impact assessment of the sewage outfall was conducted at Davis Station, East Antarctica. An investigation of the nature and extent of impacts to the marine environment associated with current sewage treatment and effluent discharge practices included ecological surveys of macrobiological communities, physico-chemical analysis of sediments and receiving waters, microbiological analysis, and histopathological analysis of fish. Ecotoxicological testing using local invertebrates to determine effluent toxicity was interpreted alongside dispersal modelling data of the discharge plume to determine the potential extent of impacts and inform recommendations on the level of treatment and dilution of sewage required to minimise impacts. No evidence of impacts was detected on soft sediment infaunal or epifaunal communities, and only low levels of contamination and accumulation were found in sediments and waters in the immediate vicinity of the outfall and in the direction of primary current flow. In contrast, sterol biomarkers and faecal coliforms (E. coli) were detected in sediments collected adjacent to the outfall and in most water column samples. Marine invertebrates (Abatus and Laternula) also tested positive for E. coli and antibiotic resistance mechanisms were present in Laternula indicating the introduction and dispersal through the water column of foreign microbes and bacteria associated with human effluent. Fish (Trematomus bernacchii) close to the outfall showed significant histological alterations in all major tissues (liver, gill, gonad, muscle) resulting from exposure to sewage. Effluent was toxic to amphipods (Paramoera walkeri) and microgastropods (Skenella paludionoides), with reduced survival in concentrations as low as 3.125% over a 21d exposure period. Acute effects were also observed in both species following 24h exposure, with 100% mortality at the highest effluent concentrations tested (68%). The application of these results to support and guide decisions regarding the planned installation of new sewage treatment facilities at Davis will be discussed.