Facilitating communities in designing and using their own community health impact assessment tool

Reducing health inequities and improving the health of communities require an informed public that is aware of the social determinants of health and how policies and programs have an impact on the health of their communities. People Assessing Their Health (PATH) is a process that uses community-driven health impact assessment to build the capacity of people to become active participants in the decisions that affect the well-being of their community. The PATH process is both a health promotion and a community development approach that builds people's ability to bring critical analysis to a situation and to engage in effective social action to bring about desired change. Because it increases analytical skills and provides communities with their own unique tool to assess the potential impact of projects, programs or policies on the health and well-being of their community it is an empowering process. PATH was originally used in three communities in northeastern Nova Scotia, Canada in 1996 when the Canadian health care system was being restructured to a more decentralized system. Since then it has been used in other communities in Nova Scotia and India.This paper will describe the PATH process and the use of the community health impact assessment as well as the methodology used in the PATH process. The lessons learned from PATH's experiences of building capacity among the community in Canada and India will be presented.