Task 3 – Assessment of community health and safety risks and impacts

Contents in this section:

This task identifies, analyses and ranks the potential impacts and risks that may be associated with a project/site, spatially at the level of potentially affected stakeholders and temporally through different lifecycle stages. The impact and risk assessment must respect available evidence and:

Be performed at the appropriate level defined in the scoping phase (desk-based, rapid appraisal and comprehensive).
Clearly identify the potentially affected stakeholders (sensitive receptors), including an accurate community profile and, if possible, quantified and geo-referenced.
Consider certain key elements that are described in the SHIRA analysis (see section 3C), including:
- Looking carefully at the outcomes of the review of the internal context (project/site activities) and where these may directly and indirectly impact on CHS at a community level. These should include:
  - The future and current operational status of the project/site (e.g. move from surface to underground, feasibilities for expansion, etc.)
  - Information on CHS in the current SMP, particularly specific progress to achieving long-term objectives related to CHS, and any planned adjustments to improve progress.
  - Incidents and grievances related to CHS that have occurred in the past.
  - Review the effectiveness of existing CHS controls. Importantly, these controls should be specific to identified impacts/risks and not just general community health interventions. However, certain interventions not targeted to the identified impact/risks may inadvertently, or indirectly, be effective in supporting a control and should therefore be considered in terms of their effectiveness.
  - Any changes in the legal or regulatory framework related to CHS.
  - Changes or anticipated changes to the local socio-economic conditions and political structures/ dynamics.
- Consideration of the outcomes of the review of the external context, including the health status and health priorities (baseline health data), as well as specific potential vulnerabilities of the potentially affected stakeholders. As described earlier, stakeholder comments, concerns and perspectives are an important source of information to support this understanding. Perceived health impacts should be given due attention.
- Determine the social consequence level using the scale and site-related vulnerability of the potential impact/risk. The social consequence matrix notes that remediability is not considered in CHS.

Indicate differences and inequities of how impacts will affect vulnerable groups, as per considerations in Box 4C.9.
Consider CHS cumulative impacts as an integral part of the assessments, as discussed in Section 3C under Task 9.

Quantify impacts, when appropriate and when adequate data/models are available.
Identify and, if possible, quantify uncertainty and limitations.

Additional biophysical, socio-economic and health-related assessments that can contribute to completing an HIA include:

Mental health and mental well-being impact assessments: focus on impacts which affect how individuals maintain or can recover a state of good mental health and well-being in which they realise their own potential, are able to cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and are able to contribute to their community.

Workplace health studies or interventions: including health risk assessments, medical service capability assessments, medical emergency response and evacuation plans, communicable disease plans, etc.
Local waste management and hazardous materials management assessments: assess the local capacity and infrastructure for transportation, handling, and disposal of waste and hazardous waste, if these are not addressed as part of the EIA process and included in specific environmental management plans.
Traffic-risk assessments: aim to identify pre-existing traffic-risk areas and model optimal transportation and haul routes and times.
Land access, displacement and resettlement health-risk assessments: evaluate resettlement and livelihood-restoration plans through a health lens. Potential generic direct and indirect health impacts that may be associated with physical displacement and economic resettlement are summarised in the 12 CHSA approach in 4C Guidance Note 4.
Site-induced management assessments and plans: evaluate site-induced migration (SIM) impacts and risks from a health perspective, with generic impacts/risks summarised in the 12 CHSA approach in 4C Guidance Note 5.

Bio-physical studies or monitoring reports: including, air quality, surface/ground water quantity and quality, geochemistry/soil studies, noise and vibration.
Socio-economic studies: including baselines, community appraisals, etc.
Artisanal and small-scale mining assessments.

The impact and risk assessment process should ideally follow the CHSA approach (12 areas), to include:

Identification of health-related issues that describes salient points of the internal and external context, specific vulnerabilities and stakeholder perspectives.
The impact/risk definition that includes:
- A health impact pathway – a cause of potential impact and risk on potentially affected stakeholders related to health determinants and outcomes owing to direct, indirect and cumulative activities of the site/project.
- Effectiveness of existing controls.
- A description of the unwanted event or identification of a priority unwanted event that may result from the anticipated impact.

The impact evaluation (or impact analysis or assessment) that includes:
- A rating of the social consequence level following the social consequence matrix (see Section 3C) that considers:
  - A modified determination of the scale for CHS in relation to the specific impact or risk under evaluation. Several factors need to be considered as part of the definition of scale in the impact evaluation, including:
    - The magnitude of the health impact/risk that considers the intensity/severity of the health effect on receptors.
    - The temporal scale and duration of an impact/risk that may result in an acute short-lasting or a chronic or long-term consequence. This can include both the duration of exposure to a hazard as well as the potential duration of a potential negative health outcome due to the impact.
    - Spatial scale or extent of physical extent of influence of the impact/risk on sensitive receptors. This can include considerations as to whether potential impact is at: i) a localised area or confined to a small number of sensitive receptors (limited to a few individuals, small number of households or small settlement); ii) localised to an area within a site/project AOI or within the AOI – this generally involves a number of communities or potentially affected stakeholders in the immediate area of the site/project; iii) a regional area which generally includes potentially affected stakeholders which may be away from the immediate AOI – often along transport corridors or where potential health impacts can spread beyond the immediate AOI; and, iv) where health impacts can spread across vast areas (e.g. within a country or even internationally).
  - A determination of vulnerability for potentially affected stakeholders, including the ability to adapt to the pre-impact level of health.
- Determine the risk rating by taking the defined consequence level and consider the likelihood of it occurring following the ORM 5x5 matrix. The priority or significance of the risk is defined in the matrix and, importantly:
  - Actual impacts/risks (i.e. those currently occurring) should always be classified as 5 in the likelihood column.
  - All potential impacts/risks rated as High or Major social consequences are considered Priority Unwanted Events, irrespective of their likelihood.
- Recommended mitigation/management measures/controls to effectively avoid, minimise, mitigate or remediate identified impacts.
- The timing of the impact/risk in the project/site lifecycle and how long it may persist for (e.g. is the impact only expected during construction, or may it extend from construction into operations, or persist into closure?).

Determining the significance level for the scale of a CHS impact is not a straightforward computation of duration of impacts versus numbers of community members affected. Likewise, determining the magnitude of a CHS impact may be open to interpretation. Therefore, the analysis (assessment or evaluation) of each CHS impact should be performed by a competent expert (i.e. a specialist with competencies in public health and HIA– see 4C Tool 5), who gives due regard to a range of relevant evidence and informs a transparent and reasoned conclusion on the significance levels for CHS impacts, including:

The scientific literature.
Internal context of the project/site and how these activities may directly or indirectly impact human health.
The external context that includes:
- the baseline conditions of potentially affected stakeholders
- consultation feedback from potentially affected stakeholders and perspectives of stakeholders
- health priorities in the jurisdiction/AOI
- relevant regulatory standards in the jurisdiction
- policy context in the jurisdiction.

A robust, reasoned conclusion (in the impact evaluation) on the magnitude or significance of a CHS impact, as well as the vulnerability of affected stakeholders to such impacts, should relate the evidence to the specific context of each health issue. The reporting should include a structured narrative that draws together the range of relevant information and dimensions to support the professional judgment taken on the significance level (consequence (scale and vulnerability) x likelihood) of each CHS impact. The Social Consequence Matrix provides a framework to guide this process; however, specialist expertise and knowledge should be used to categorise impact consequence levels.

As relevant and possible, it is recommended that proposed controls or management measures are divided into three management components based on the focus of the intervention:

Site-impact mitigation: interventions required to manage the potential health impacts/risks on sensitive receptors. These are deemed as required or recommended for the project/site to implement and are not voluntary contributions. The precautionary principle should apply while analysing these options together with practical considerations.
Occupational health, safety and environmental management: Interventions aimed at ensuring a healthy, safe and productive workforce. In addition, it considers aspects that can be controlled in the workforce to address community health impacts.
Socio-economic development (SED) initiatives: Interventions suggested that will improve the existing health status of the communities. These are voluntary contributions and should bring about health benefits and improve the social licence to operate in the receptive communities. These recommendations should be integrated into SED planning aligned to Section 4A, with overlap where possible to impact mitigation. It may be possible that certain management/ mitigation controls can extend further than just reducing a negative effect and create a CHS benefit.

Plan

Plan