Health in All Policies Public Health Planning Training Course

Course overview

Public health outcomes are shaped by decisions made far beyond health services: transport routes affect physical activity and injury risk; housing standards influence respiratory illness; employment policy affects mental health; and planning decisions can widen or reduce health inequities. Health teams are often asked to influence these decisions without a repeatable process for framing health evidence, engaging non-health departments, assessing trade-offs, or securing accountability. This course equips participants to make Health in All Policies (HiAP) a practical planning discipline rather than a statement of intent.

Participants learn to apply the WHO Health in All Policies Framework to policy development, strategic plans, programmes and capital projects. They build stakeholder maps, define shared policy objectives, use health equity and social determinants evidence, scope a proportionate Health Impact Assessment (HIA), develop policy options, and construct governance and monitoring arrangements. The course addresses political feasibility, co-benefits, distributional impacts, data limitations, cross-sector negotiation and the use of indicators that decision-makers can act on.

Teaching combines instructor-led method demonstrations with public health, housing, transport and local government cases. Participants work in multidisciplinary groups on a realistic policy proposal, using structured templates for screening, evidence appraisal, stakeholder analysis, recommendation writing and implementation tracking. Each participant leaves with a draft HiAP action plan and a completed HIA scoping pack for a live or selected policy issue in their own organisation, ready to refine with colleagues after the course.

The programme is designed for experienced public health, policy, planning and partnership professionals who need to embed health and equity considerations in decisions led by other sectors.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the WHO Health in All Policies Framework to a cross-sector policy or programme decision
• Construct a stakeholder and power map for agencies influencing health determinants
• Conduct a proportionate Health Impact Assessment screening and scoping exercise
• Analyse health equity impacts using population, deprivation and protected-characteristic evidence
• Develop policy options that identify health co-benefits, trade-offs and distributional effects
• Draft measurable HiAP recommendations with named owners, milestones and escalation routes
• Design cross-sector governance arrangements using terms of reference, accountability and decision rights
• Produce a HiAP action plan and monitoring dashboard specification for an organisational priority

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Public Health Managers — who need to influence policies owned by housing, transport, planning and economic development teams
• Health Improvement Leads — who translate population health priorities into practical cross-sector action
• Local Government Policy Officers — who need to test policy proposals for health and equity consequences
• Urban and Spatial Planners — who must incorporate health evidence into plans, development frameworks and infrastructure decisions
• Integrated Care System Programme Managers — who coordinate prevention priorities across NHS, council and voluntary-sector partners
• Health Equity and Population Health Analysts — who provide evidence for place-based decisions and need to communicate it to non-health audiences

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working experience in public health, policy, planning, commissioning, local government, health systems or partnership programmes. They should be able to interpret basic population health indicators, understand health inequalities and social determinants of health, and contribute to policy or project documentation. Familiarity with Excel spreadsheets and local demographic or service data is useful because exercises involve evidence tables and indicator selection. Prior Health Impact Assessment certification, advanced statistics, epidemiology modelling, GIS expertise and experience with formal cabinet or board processes are not required. Participants should bring a current policy, plan, project or partnership issue they can use as an application case.

Training methodology

The instructor introduces each HiAP method through worked examples from transport, housing, regeneration and prevention policy, then participants apply it to a structured case or their own issue. Workshops use stakeholder-mapping canvases, HIA screening forms, evidence matrices, option appraisal tables and governance templates. Small groups challenge one another’s recommendations from the perspective of non-health departments, senior decision-makers and affected communities. Facilitated feedback focuses on feasibility, evidence quality and equity. The final day is an application lab in which participants assemble an implementation-ready HiAP action plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Health in All Policies foundations

• WHO Health in All Policies Framework principles and operating model
• Social determinants of health and pathways from policy to outcomes
• Health equity, intersectionality and distributional impact concepts
• Distinguishing HiAP from health promotion, partnership working and statutory consultation
• Policy lifecycle entry points for health influence
• Health co-benefits, trade-offs and unintended consequences
• Selecting a live policy, plan or project for HiAP application

Workshop: Participants map the health pathways and equity implications of a proposed local transport, housing or regeneration policy and produce a problem-framing canvas.

Day 2: Evidence, stakeholders and agenda setting

• Stakeholder and power mapping across public, private and voluntary sectors
• Identifying policy owners, decision rights and informal influencers
• Community participation and lived-experience evidence in HiAP processes
• Population health profiles, deprivation data and demographic segmentation
• Using WHO Urban HEART to identify equity gaps
• Evidence matrices for combining quantitative, qualitative and local intelligence
• Framing shared outcomes for non-health sector partners

Workshop: Participants create a stakeholder-power map and evidence matrix for their selected issue, identifying engagement priorities and evidence gaps.

Day 3: Health Impact Assessment in policy planning

• Health Impact Assessment purpose, principles and proportionality
• HIA screening criteria and decision thresholds
• Scoping health determinants, affected populations and geographic boundaries
• Rapid, intermediate and comprehensive HIA approaches
• Baseline profiling and causal pathway mapping
• Assessing positive, negative, direct, indirect and cumulative impacts
• Managing uncertainty, evidence quality and contested assumptions

Workshop: Participants complete an HIA screening decision and scoping pack, including affected groups, priority determinants, evidence sources and assessment questions.

Day 4: Policy options, governance and accountability

• Developing health-informed policy options and mitigation measures
• Multi-criteria option appraisal for health, equity, cost and deliverability
• Using WHO HEAT to articulate health and economic co-benefits of walking and cycling
• Writing recommendations for policy papers, business cases and cabinet reports
• HiAP governance structures, terms of reference and partnership mandates
• Accountability mechanisms, escalation routes and decision logs
• Negotiating shared commitments across sectors with competing objectives

Workshop: Teams appraise three policy options and produce a recommendation paper with mitigations, accountable owners and a governance route.

Day 5: Implementation, monitoring and organisational adoption

• Translating HiAP recommendations into delivery plans
• Selecting leading, lagging, process and equity indicators
• Disaggregating indicators by deprivation, geography and population group
• Microsoft Power BI dashboard requirements for HiAP monitoring
• Review cycles, learning loops and policy adaptation
• Embedding HiAP in commissioning, planning and corporate decision templates
• Communicating findings to executives, elected members and partner organisations

Workshop: Participants present an implementation-ready HiAP action plan and dashboard specification for their selected issue, receiving peer and instructor review.

Tools & standards covered

WHO Health in All Policies Framework, WHO Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT), WHO Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART), Microsoft Power BI

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions