Creating a realist theorizing framework for the development of Human Rights Health Impact Assessment Methodology (HRHIA)

Health Impact Assessment is a structured process that uses scientific data, professional expertise, and stakeholder input to identify and predict public-health consequences of proposals and suggests actions that could be taken... [ view full abstract ]

Health Impact Assessment is a structured process that uses scientific data, professional expertise, and stakeholder input to identify and predict public-health consequences of proposals and suggests actions that could be taken to minimize adverse health impacts and optimize beneficial ones. This presentation focuses on the preliminary results of doctoral research investigating integration of human rights into health impact assessment.

I set out to conceptualise a HRHIA methodology that was based on critical realist (CR) ontological perspectives and to embed this HRHIA concept within a wider theory about the relationship between the methodology and the environment within which it would be applied, and that it was intended to influence. I also wished to critique use of CR-based research approaches to develop theory.

The approach involved use of a critical realist framework for theory development and verification. The theorizing framework adapted from existing CR frameworks involved four interrelated and iterative steps: description and analytic resolution of events and their effects; explication of structure using abductive and retroductive reasoning; explanatory power and contextualization assessment; theory verification and concretization.

In this presentation I will describe the process of developing a realist theorizing framework for methodology development and how that was then applied to the development of HRHIA methodology and theory using survey, case study and analytic self-study methodologies.

I will also present a theory of HRHIA which includes five clusters of CR informed constructs and propositions that concern.
• key ‘HRHIA’ entities and their respective attributes
• entities in HRHIA environments that may influence the exercise of HRHIA mechanisms and their effects/ impacts (their respective attributes and contingent mechanisms)
• attributes of a methodology
• attributes and mechanisms of a HRHIA methodology
• contingent and contextually-influenced relationships between a HRHIA methodology and HRHIA environments