Veerman J Lennert, Mackenbach Johan P, Barendregt Jan J
Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2007 Apr;61(4):362-6. doi: 10.1136/jech.2006.047480.
An essential characteristic of health impact assessment (HIA) is that it seeks to predict the future consequences of possible decisions for health. These predictions have to be valid, but as yet it is unclear how validity should be defined in HIA.
To examine the philosophical basis for predictions and the relevance of different forms of validity to HIA.
HIA is valid if formal validity, plausibility and predictive validity are in order. Both formal validity and plausibility can usually be established, but establishing predictive validity implies outcome evaluation of HIA. This is seldom feasible owing to long time lags, migration, measurement problems, a lack of data and sensitive indicators, and the fact that predictions may influence subsequent events. Predictive validity most often is not attainable in HIA and we have to make do with formal validity and plausibility. However, in political science, this is by no means exceptional.
健康影响评估（HIA）的一个基本特征是，它试图预测可能的决策对健康的未来影响。这些预测必须有效，但目前尚不清楚在HIA中应如何定义有效性。
探讨预测的哲学基础以及不同形式的有效性与HIA的相关性。
如果形式有效性、合理性和预测有效性都符合要求，那么HIA就是有效的。形式有效性和合理性通常都可以确立，但确立预测有效性意味着对HIA进行结果评估。由于时间滞后、人口迁移、测量问题、数据缺乏、敏感指标以及预测可能影响后续事件等原因，这很少可行。在HIA中，预测有效性通常无法实现，我们不得不依赖形式有效性和合理性。然而，在政治学中，这绝非例外。
