Introduction to the HIA Community of Practice
What is a CoP?
A Community of Practice (CoP) represents a group of professionals, informally
connected to one another through exposure to a common class of problems and
common pursuit of solutions. Communities of Practice are associated with
knowledge management as a way of developing social capital, nurturing new
ideas, stimulating innovation, and sharing knowledge within an organization.
Communities of practice knit people together with peers and their outputs
include leading practices, guidelines, knowledge repositories, technical
problem and solution discussions, working papers, and strategies.
What is ph Connect?
phConnect (http://www.phconnect.org/) is an online collaboration tool built to support geographically dispersed
professionals working in the field of public health. phConnect provides an environment for collaborative work,
professional networking, and moving public health forward. Features within the phConnect tool include the ability to: 1)
create communities around particular topics of interest; 2) contribute to a forum of all phConnect members; 3) search for
and email other members; 4) post, find, and archive events, announcements, and discussions; and, 5) collaborate on
working documents. The ease in which you can share pages on other platforms such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook,
StumbleUpon, Digg, and del.icio.us makes sharing information with other colleagues or keeping track of events
convenient.
What is the Purpose of the Health Impact Assessment CoP?
The mission of the HIA Community of Practice is to increase the use of HIA to inform policy decisions that shape the
built environment and make healthy lifestyle choices easy choices. The HIA Community of Practice has 6 overarching
goals:
1. To provide a platform for collaboration and a dynamic work space where practitioners, academics, researchers,
funders, and other interested parties from around the world can openly discuss the practice and implications of HIA
no matter what their field or level of expertise.
2. To learn from each others’ experiences, successes, and failures to build expertise and capacity for conducting HIA in
the United States and abroad.
3. To develop and support HIA best practices, lessons learned, and/or standards for conducting an HIA.
4. To look for collaborators especially within the fields of planning, engineering, political science, and public
administration.
5. To operate around the following governance principles: participation, transparency, responsiveness, consensus
orientation, equity and inclusiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, and rules of engagement.
6. To evaluate the success of the HIA Community of Practice on an annual basis through participant surveys, a list of
documents created and events held, and a summary of member statistics.
HIA is a relatively new process within the United States that has garnered a lot of attention over the last decade and many
different applications and methods of how to conduct a HIA have been suggested. A Community of Practice can assist in
developing a common language around HIAs, providing guidance to those who are new to the field, and allowing those
with an advanced understanding of HIA to coordinate their efforts in promoting and advancing the field.
An HIA Community of Practice would enhance the public health field by providing a coordinated, international,
interdisciplinary, and multi-level approach to conducting HIAs. For the HIA field to maintain its momentum and
accomplish the purpose of providing decision makers with accurate information on the potential health impacts of their
decision and the distribution of those impacts within the population, it is critical that open communication takes place
between practitioners, health researchers, and funders.
How will I Benefit by Joining the HIA CoP?
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Foundations and Researchers:
o Increased capacity to conduct HIA throughout the United States and elsewhere.
o Record of funding practices and accomplishments through grantee subgroups.
o Archived posts of available tools, reports, discussions, trainings, etc.
o List of contacts for future speakers, technical assistance, grantees, etc.
o The identification of research needs and opportunities to support the use of HIA
Practitioners:
o Potential to create an extensive network of colleagues working on different HIA projects that can provide future
assistance.
o Timely knowledge of funding opportunities and potential partners.
o Opportunity to share accomplishments and lessons learned.
o Central location to find information on what is being done in the HIA field.
o Ability to publish and use documents or tools that have resulted through collaborative effort within the
community.
o Opportunity to improve upon initial efforts in HIA and expand capabilities
How can I Support the HIA CoP?
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Join phConnect and the HIA CoP Community!
If you represent a foundation supporting HIA work:
o Share funding announcements
o Encourage grantees to join the HIA CoP
o Create additional subgroups to coordinate grantee efforts
o Share the successes and lesson learns of your grantee’s work
If you are a researcher, student, or academic:
o Share your HIA reports, supporting papers, data, methodology, etc.
o Volunteer to work with other practitioners in your area to conduct HIAs
o Encourage colleagues to join the community
o Help identify areas of research that would benefit the HIA community
o Present your findings or general knowledge of specific topics of interest
If you are a experienced or novice practitioner:
o Share your successes and lessons learned while conducting HIAs
o Help identify areas of research or technical support that would benefit the HIA community
o Create mentoring relationships with other practitioners and encourage colleagues to join
o Share your concerns and barriers to conducting HIAs
o Take advantage of or assist with the learning opportunities offered through the community
For additional information on phConnect and the HIA CoP please visit www.phconnect.org or contact Katherine Hebert
at hebert.katherine@gmail.com .