Potentials of health impact assessment as a local health policy supporting tool

Planning for health and creating healthy public policy has been one of the main priorities of the Healthy Cities Project since the early 1990s. The Healthy City Foundation of Pécs (Hungary) – as one of the founding cities of the Healthy Cities Project in Europe – has been involved in all phases of health profiling, health planning and health development planning throughout the years. The experiences of the Healthy Cities Project have strengthened the recognition that the decisions of elected local decision-making bodies are generally based on daily demands and not on long-term plans or concepts. The decision-making process has only one type of filtering system (operated by the city notary), which is for the preliminary legal control of the decisions to be made. Quality of life, health and equity are not considered in the system as a filtering issue. This article reports the experiences of the unique approach of health-orientated planning and decision making in the City of Pécs by using the method of health impact assessment (HIA) as a ‘health filter’. It describes the initiative, the success of training and the feasibility of creating a health filter to support the local decision-making process.