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Karen W. Lowrie, PhD; Leigh Ann Von Hagen, AICP/PP

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HIA TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONALS:
HOW A UNIVERSITY-BASED CENTER CAN HELP TO BUILD 

AWARENESS AND CAPACITY

PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD



HIA Training for Professionals Lowrie; Von Hagen

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Introduction

When a group of faculty and research staff from various 
subfields of planning at the Edward J. Bloustein School 
of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University 
in New Jersey got together in 2012 around their 
common interest in fostering healthy communities, 
they realized there were gaps in connections and 
information-sharing between planners, public health 
professionals and policy-makers to understand health 
outcomes in non-health policy and project decisions.  
From initial discussions and research, the Planning 
Healthy Communities Initiative (PHCI) was born.  PHCI 
is a multidisciplinary team at the Rutgers Bloustein 
School with expertise in active transportation and 
infrastructure, green buildings, environmental analysis, 
advancing health equity, and supporting community-
based efforts. One of the pillars of the PHCI is capacity-
building.  Quick research revealed that by 2012, 
only one Health Impact Assessment (HIA) had been 
performed in New Jersey and that no other institution 
in the state was conducting or actively promoting 
HIA.  Therefore organizations and governments had 
little awareness of them or capacity to perform them.  
PHCI stepped in to fill this gap in a number of ways, 
but perhaps the most in-depth and most direct was 

the creation of a new one-day HIA training course that 
would be the first ever in New Jersey.

HIA Class Specifics

One of the PHCI goals is to educate as many decision-
makers and administrators in New Jersey as possible 
about the purpose and goals of HIA and Health in all 
Policies (HIAP).  In spring of 2015, the first training 
course was offered.  The course is one of many 
in varied fields listed with the Rutgers Office of 
Continuing Professional Education (CPE).  Offering the 
class through CPE has many advantages including their 
lead role in advertising, classroom facility and catering 
setup, fee collection and online and onsite registration.  
CPE staff also assist with securing CEU’s (see table 
below) from various professional associations, and 
issue participation certificates.  With Rutgers CPE staff 
handling much of the class logistics, the facilitators 
from PHCI are responsible for instructing on the 
content, leading group exercises and discussions, and 
preparing PowerPoint slides and participant packets.  
PHCI also advertises the class through its website and 
that of the Bloustein School, and through e-mail blasts 
to other associations in the planning, development 
and public health fields.

Some selected CEU’s offered to HIA training participants:

Rutgers University 0.5 CEUs

NJ Site Remediation Professional Licensing Board 
(NJSRPB)

4.5 Regulatory credits

Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES) 4 Category 1 CE Credits

Rutgers Planning and Zoning Certificate 3 Technical Credits

American Planners Association (APA) 5 CEUs

NJ Continuing Legal Education (CLE) 3.4 CLEs

NJ Health Officers and Registered Environmental 
Health Specialists (REHS)

5 NJ Public Health Continuing Education Contact 
Hours (CEs)

NJ Professional Engineers 5 Continuing Professional Competency (CPC) credits



HIA Training for Professionals Lowrie; Von Hagen

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The one-day class runs from mid-morning through 
mid-afternoon, with breakfast and lunch provided.  
The instructional material covers the six steps of 
HIA through a mix of lecture and group exercises 
with report-outs.  Exercises on screening, scoping, 
assessment and recommendations are conducted 
in groups of 4-8 participants.  The class ends with 
discussion of the application of HIA in job settings, 
and brainstorming about resources needed to help 
participants to implement it in their workplaces.  The 
facilitators draw on real-life examples from HIAs that 
PHCI has conducted in New Jersey over the past five 
years. 

Participant Evaluations

As of fall of 2018, about 150 people have attended the 
six sessions that have been conducted.  Participants 
attend mostly from local and regional governments, 
non-profits and private consultants from the fields of 
planning, public and environmental health, community 
development and engineering.  Recently, hospital 
employees have attended because hospitals are getting 
more involved with policy and with community health 
initiatives.

Many attend the training sessions for the credits, and 
some also for points awarded by Sustainable Jersey, 
a program that rewards NJ municipalities for taking 
actions to become more sustainable and improve 
quality of life.  Others noted that they took the class 
because it sounded “interesting” and they wanted to 
learn more about this new screening tool to help with 
decision-making.  The class is open to anyone, and 
several attendees have also come from outside New 
Jersey.

In post-class evaluation, a vast majority rated the class 
as “Excellent” or “Very Good” on program objectives, 
content, usefulness and stimulating interest in the 
topic.  The most popular elements of the class are the 
group exercises and discussions, the breakdown of the 
six steps, and networking that occurred in the room 

as people from across different sectors and different 
parts of the state meet each other and work together.

Participants were asked for the most valuable parts of 
the class and to describe what they learned.  Answers 
demonstrate the value of the class in raising awareness 
and building some capacity for HIA in New Jersey.

Selected comments by HIA class participants on the 
learning value and benefits of the class:

• I learned how to incorporate an HIA into a 
project. 

• I learned the importance of identifying and 
engaging subgroups to include in the process. 

• I learned performing a health pathway. 
• I really appreciated the sourced information in 

the presentation.
• Overall, course was an excellent introduction to 

the topic of HIA.
• Excellent program, I hope to implement HIA with 

township committee, planning board and Green 
Team.

• The information was very practical; the team 
work at tables was great.

• I learned that almost every decision has an 
impact on the health of the community and 
individuals.

• I am better equipped to promote role of health 
when working with counties and municipalities.

• HIA is really new to me-so I learned a lot of 
relevant vocabulary, concepts and case study 
applications.

• It broadened my perspective on health impacts.
• Class should be mandated for municipal 

government.

Extensions and follow-up suggested by attendees 
include the creation of a sharing distribution to 
continue collaboration and discussion among program 
attendees, and the offering of additional training that 
focuses more on the role of regulation and government 
and/or that goes into more detail on HIA or HIA 2.0 
applications.



HIA Training for Professionals Lowrie; Von Hagen

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Key Takeaways

For the PHCI facilitators, the HIA training class has 
been a fun, worthwhile, and interesting experience.  
We feel that it is an ideal role for a University because 
we can offer training at a less expensive price, utilize/
leverage in-house expertise and resources, and we are 
perceived as a “neutral” organization and site without 
any political or financial motive or connection with 
advocacy.

After almost four years, we have developed a set of 
take-away messages – some in the form of general 
observations and some in the form of wishes for the 
future of the program:

• The language of health is different from the 
language of other professional fields…Thinking 
through a health lens is sometimes a difficult 
exercise for those in non-health fields.  Teaching 
about health pathways and logic models 
therefore can create “lightbulb moments” in 
attendees from non-health sectors.

• Many class participants see the value of HIA, 
but wonder how to get it done.  The most 
common concern usually centers on questions 
about resources and capacities to conduct HIA 
and justifying the time to do it given the lack of 
mandates.

• Many attendees lack the confidence that they 
will be able to sift through data sources and 
to analyze, understand and trust data without 
expert help.

• Connecting people across disciplines around 
health impacts can forge new relationships 
around common goals.  People meeting other 
people from different sectors and different 
types of organizations, and hearing each other’s 
perspectives is one of the great benefits of the 
training. 

We hope to respond to the recommendations of 
attendees for a “Part 2” class offering.  We have also 
re-packaged the content prepared for the six-hour 
class into shorter 1, 2 and 3-hour versions to take “on 
the road” to various other organizations, with similar 
positive reactions from audiences.

We at PHCI are happy to further discuss our experiences 
and share our insights with others considering 
developing similar programs.  Please contact Karen 
Lowrie (klowrie@rutgers.edu) or Leigh Ann Von Hagen 
(lavh@rutgers.edu), and visit our website at phci.
rutgers.edu.

Promotional Flyer for HIA Training Course



HIA Training for Professionals Lowrie; Von Hagen

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CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Karen Lowrie, PhD
Edward J. Bloustein School of  Planning and Public Policy
Rutgers University
33 Livingston Ave.
Newbrunswick, NJ 08901
klowrie@rutgers.edu 

CHIA Staff:

Editor-in-Chief  
Cynthia Stone, DrPH, RN, Professor, Richard M. Fairbanks School of  Public Health, Indiana University-Purdue 
University Indianapolis

Journal Manager 
Angela Evertsen, BA, Richard M. Fairbanks School of  Public Health, Indiana University-Purdue University 
Indianapolis

Chronicles of  Health Impact Assessment Vol. 3 Issue 2 (2018) DOI: 10.18060/22755
© 2018 Author(s): Lowrie, K.; Von Hagen, L.
        This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License


