Health impact assessment should be based on correct methods.
Med Lav
; 113(2): e2022019, 2022 Apr 26.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35481578
ABSTRACT
The methodology of health impact assessment (HIA), originally proposed by WHO, is widely used to predict the potential health effects in a community living in a place in which a new project (e.g., an industrial plant) will be implemented. One of the key quantities to calculate the impact (i.e., the number of attributable cases) is the baseline (i.e., before the project implementation) rate of selected diseases in the community. In a recent paper on this journal, this methodology has been challenged. Specifically, the use of baseline rate has been questioned, proposing to use only the fraction of the baseline rate due to the exposures related to the project, and not the rate due to all risk factors for the disease. In this commentary, we argue that the proposal is logically and epidemiologically unsound, and devoid of scientific motivation. The conclusion that the traditional approach overestimates the health impact should be rejected as based on flawed assumptions. On the contrary, the proposal may produce a (seriously biased) underestimation of attributable cases.
Texto completo:
1
Bases de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Evaluación del Impacto en la Salud
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Med Lav
Año:
2022
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Italia