Yuen Tina K, Payne-Sturges Devon C
New Solut. 2013 Jan 1;23(3):1-28. doi: 10.2190/NS.23.3.b.
Regulatory interventions are the first line of action used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fulfill its mission to protect the environment and health. Although the Agency has prioritized the integration of environmental justice into its activities, uncertainty remains in how these considerations will be incorporated into its regulatory decision-making processes. In this article, we examine the emerging practice of Health Impact Assessment and argue for its use within the regulatory assessment paradigm to help answer policy-relevant environmental justice questions. Through the use of a health lens, Health Impact Assessments can lead to a better characterization of the potential impacts and benefits of a rule by introducing novel assessments of potentially significant health effects that would otherwise be excluded, revealing whether the rule is likely to exacerbate inequities or create new ones. This article proposes a framework to overcome analytic barriers in achieving a more comprehensive, equity-focused regulatory analysis.
监管干预措施是美国环境保护局为履行保护环境与健康使命而采取的首要行动方针。尽管该机构已将环境正义纳入其活动的优先事项，但在如何将这些考量因素纳入其监管决策过程方面仍存在不确定性。在本文中，我们审视了健康影响评估这一新兴实践，并主张在监管评估范式中运用它来帮助解答与政策相关的环境正义问题。通过运用健康视角，健康影响评估能够通过引入对原本会被排除的潜在重大健康影响的全新评估，从而更好地描述一项规则的潜在影响和益处，揭示该规则是否可能加剧不平等或造成新的不平等。本文提出了一个框架，以克服在进行更全面、以公平为重点的监管分析时遇到的分析障碍。
