Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) should be a mandatory part of the public policy and planning process in Ireland, the Institute of Public Health in Ireland has said.
HIAs which are similar to environmental impact studies measure the health effects of a policy or a project on a given population.
Owen Metcalfe, Institute of Public Health in Ireland
The Institute's associate director Owen Metcalfe said transport, education and construction projects need to be "more systematically assessed" in terms of their potential impact on health.
Mr Mefcalfe was addressing delegates at a conference on Health Impact Assessment in Dublin Castle today.
"Given the importance of health to the economy and society it is important to have a systematic consideration of health in policy and infrastructure development," he said.
Mr Mefcalfe said HIAs had been successfully adopted as part of public policy in other countries.
Co-ordinator of the London Health Commission, Gail Findlay told the conference how it had undertaken HIAs on all of the Mayor of London's statutory strategies for Greater London since 2001.
Ms Findlay said: "HIAs can take as little as six weeks to complete and need not be expensive."
"As a result of HIA major plans for London have been amended to effect better outcomes for health, such as greater cycling and pedestrian facilities."
"Carrying them out will have a significant benefit for the health of London in the long term, particularly in terms of narrowing health inequalities," she said.
A HIA on a traffic and transport iniative in Ballyfermot in Dublin in 2003 identified a need for more walking and cycling facilities in the area as well as more walk to school initiatives.
United Nations health expert Professor Paul Hunt said HIAs were part of the right to the highest attainable standard of health.
He said they should be consistently and coherently applied across all relevant national and international policy-making processes.