October 2019 Volume 4 Issue 1

C H I A
Chronicles of Health 
Impact Assessment

Improving community health through health impact assessments

LETTER FROM THE GUEST EDITOR

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Since the time that I began to use Health Impact Assessments in my work as an urban planner almost a decade 
ago, the use of HIAs and HiAP has continued to broaden throughout the U.S. Applying the tools to plans, 
projects, and policies has led to lots of real-world stories of success as well as lessons learned. I believe that as 
HIA and HiAP practitioners, sharing our valuable stories of ‘how did you actually do that?’, ‘what worked and 
what didn’t?’ and ‘what did you learn from it?’ get to the heart of this practice: how to improve health and 
equity through intentional consideration of the impacts of policies, legislation, and built environment projects 
on people’s health, wellness, and access to opportunity. 

I asked several of my many distinguished HIA colleagues from around the country to share their real-world 
stories of their use of HIA and HiAP to lead to more equitable development outcomes in the built environment.
Erik Calloway at ChangeLab Solutions sets the stage with a reflective examination of HiAP experiences and 
lessons from Minneapolis, MN, Seattle, WA, and Richmond, CA. In Fort Collins, CO, Kelly Haworth and Liz 
Young at Larimer County Public Health share their story of creating a new partnership and sharing data with 
engineers to inform sidewalk construction projects. Finally, in Denver, CO, my colleague Maggie Kauffman and 
I share the evolution of our HIA 1.0 program to a more integrated HIA 2.0 to expand and quantify health and 
equity. 

I hope you find these stories informative, inspirational, perhaps entertaining, and encouraging in your practice 
of HIA and HiAP.

Happy reading!

Gretchen Armijo, AICP, LEED AP