The Islandman

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a process which helps decision making by predicting the consequences for health of choosing different options in terms of policies, plans, and projects. There is growing interest among health professionals, planners and politicians in using HIA to help safeguard and improve the health of populations and reduce health inequalities. Health Impact Assessment: Past Achievement, Current Understanding, and Future Progress explores the past development of HIA, its current practice and possible future. Written in two parts, the first section by John Kemm provides an overview describing the various ways in which an HIA can be done. Highly practical in emphasis, it describes how HIA can be applied in different contexts to meet the needs of different decision makers and answer a variety of questions. It deals notonly with the many good reasons for using HIA but also critically examines the weaknesses of current practice. The second part consists of chapters written by authors practising HIA from different countries throughout the world, demonstrating the various pressures and legislative frameworks that have shaped the evolution of HIA. Illustrating the range of views about the reasons for doing HIA and how it should be done, and revealing how the practice of HIA has been adapted to suit different cultures and help decision making in varying situations.Tomas O'Crohan was born on the Great Blasket Island in 1865 and died there in 1937, a great master of his native Irish. He shared to the full the perilous life of a primitive community, yet possessed a shrewd and humorous detachment that enabled him to observe and describe the world. His book is a valuable description of a new vanished way of life; his sole purpose in writing it was in his own words, 'to set down the character of the people about me so that somerecord of us might live after us, for the like of us will never be again'. The Blasket Islands are three miles off Irelands Dingle Peninsula. Until their evacuation just after the Second World War, the lives of the 150 or so Blasket Islanders had remained unchanged for centuries. A rich oral tradition of story-telling, poetry, and folktales kept alive the legends and history of the islands, and has made their literature famous throughout the world. The 7 Blasket Island books published by OUP contain memoirs and reminiscences from within this literary tradition,evoking a way of life which has now vanished.