Sandra de Souza Hacon
1, André Reynaldo Santos Périssé
1, Jean Simos
2, Nicola Luca Cantoreggi
2, Mirko Severin Winkler
3,4*1 Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sérgio Arouca (Ensp), Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2 Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, Genève, Switzerland.
3 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland.
4 University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract
Brazil was one of the first countries in Latin America to institutionalize a National Environmental Policy in
1981, including the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process of economic activities with anticipated
impacts on the environment. Today, EIA practice in Brazil comes with a number of limitations: it is constrained
by its environmental advocacy role; application is strongly oriented towards large capital projects; and social
responsibility considerations are only partially included. Consequently, EIA studies mainly address issues
connected to localised and direct environmental impacts, largely ignoring any socio-economic and health
impacts. This perspective paper highlights limitations of current EIA practice in Brazil with a focus on health
considerations in impact assessment. While recognizing the positive impact to municipalities where large
capital projects are being developed and operated, adverse impacts on health are a reality with measurable
evidence in Brazil. Therefore, we argue that specificities on how to systematically assess and monitor potential
health impacts cannot remain invisible in the Brazilian legislation, as currently seen in the reformulation of
the licensing process in the country. The process of better integrating the assessment of health impacts in the
licensing process of large capital project in Brazil must, however, not be based on the imposition of an external
model but should be promoted by internal stakeholders from the environmental and health sector, incorporating
the experiences gained in various case studies from all over the country.