Integrating Health in All Policies into Environmental Health Agency Work: Examples of Successful Cross-Sectoral Collaborations

Health in All Policies (HiAP) has recently emerged as a new way to describe a collaborative approach that integrates and articulates health considerations into policy making across sectors, and at all levels, to improve the health of all communities and people. In state, territorial and local environmental health departments, HiAP approaches have been utilized for decades due to the multidisciplinary nature of environmental health work. Very often, the jurisdiction or authority for addressing a multitude of environmental health issues lies outside the health department and thus necessitates inter-agency coordination and collaboration. For example, environmental health departments work with environmental agencies on air and water quality, and with housing agencies on lead and healthy homes issues. This presentation will describe some of the HiAP work occurring in state environmental health departments in the key topic areas of food, water, energy, housing and transportation. Case studies from states will be used to highlight a variety promising strategies being used to implement HiAP across the country. The implementation strategies presented will include examples of partnership building through program development, assessment and data sharing, program development and policy approaches. The goal of this presentation is to educate and empower state, territorial and local health agencies to promote HiAP.