In 2016, Rutgers University followed two pre-disaster recovery and resilience planning Health Impact Assessments (HIAs), consulted with disaster recovery and HIA thought leaders nationally, and reviewed relevant scientific literature to offer overarching national recommendations for integration of HIA into pre-disaster recovery and resilience planning.
Insights from this initiative point to the concept that HIA is a promising innovation with potentially large benefits, namely benefits related to improving health for people in disaster impacted communities, and improving the process of pre-disaster resilience planning to ensure engaged communities and sustainable solutions.
Further, the results of the two HIAs suggests that no fundamental changes are needed to make the HIA process useful in support of disaster recovery policies, plans and projects but it would greatly benefit from a combination of modifications to make it more appropriately fitted for that purpose.
Photo of Hurricane Sandy damage to the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey courtesy of the New Jersey Army National Guard.