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HEALTH AND EU ACCESSION:
Challenges to the use of Health Impact Assessment

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Margit Ohr

International Policy Fellow 2002–2003 and 2003–2004.
Center for Policy Studies, Central European University

Open Society Institute


Developing capacity in cross-sectoral governance: opportunities and barriers to the use of health impact assessment in Hungary.


Looking at current practice in Hungary in the context of preparation for EU accession, this research proposal asks:
  • Do policy makers currently consider the health impacts of non-health sector policy?
  • What capacity exists within Hungary to use health impact assessment methodology as a systematic means of appraising the potential and actual impact of policy?
  • What action could be taken to improve understanding, confidence and expertise in health impact assessment?


Despite the adoption of at least four public health strategies since 1989, health inequalities in Hungary have become wider during the transition to a market economy. The country currently has one of the lowest levels of life expectancy and poorest premature mortality rates for males in the Central and Eastern European region. At the same time, Hungary isexperiencing steady economic growth and is an EU accession country. This raises a basic question about how, from a public health perspective, this economic and political transition can be managed in order to minimise its negative health impacts especially on the most vulnerable groups in society.

 

Margit Ohr, International Policy Fellow — www.policy.hu/ohr/