The CHIA screening workshop is central to the CHIA process, bringing together those with a range of experience, knowledge and interests in the project, including those who may be impacted by it. Some impact assessment processes reply on only one or two people to identify and exploring potential impacts of a project, which risks not fully capturing the full range of potential health impacts. The CHIA screening workshop, in contrast, allows a range of perspectives to be gathered.
A workshop should consider positive and negative impacts, population groups who may be affected, health determinants and potential unintended consequences. Most proposals affect multiple populations and health determinants, often through indirect pathways. So, a systematic process is needed to identify them. Identifying potential health and equity impacts is best done as a group exercise, as one or two people alone cannot identify all the potential impacts. A workshop using the health and equity impact checklist is a method to identify impacts. Further impacts may be identified by reviewing the evidence on health impacts of similar proposals or reviewing HIA reports for similar proposals.
The CHIA screening workshop is intended to help participants:
- Identify potential impacts (positive and negative) of the proposed project on different population groups and health determinants.
- Discuss potential actions to mitigate negative impacts and maximise positive impacts.
- Identify where further evidence or community engagement may be required to better understand potential impacts.
It is important to highlight that the CHIA screening workshop is designed to help identify possible impacts, but further engagement, consultation and/or evidence gathering may be needed to fully understand different impacts and their severity across different population groups in communities. The Health and Equity Impact Checklist does not contain questions with factual answers but a list of prompts intended to stimulate thinking in a structured discussion. The group discussion allows several perspectives to be heard, and important recommendations often emerge in the interaction between participants.
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