A further issue highlighted by respondents, particularly those in Communities First areas, was the need to build up respect and trust with communities before they are willing to participate in events such as health impact assessment. As mentioned previously members of the public may not be in regular contact with their local councils and may view them as remote. One of the cases examined stressed the importance of building relationships with communities through management boards, community leaders and in particular voluntary organisations, who may be considered to be more accessible, in order to better facilitate participation. Mis-selling A recurring theme within the interviews was the mis-selling (either intentional or unintentional), incentivising or disguising of HIA in order to facilitate participation and encourage people to come along. Instances of verbal recruitment of the public, either at other meetings or by word of mouth, contributes to this issue as workshop attendees are not then provided with the relevant literature explaining the process, as is recommended at the scoping meeting when potential participants are decided upon. If this information is not provided then there is also the potential for misunderstanding the topic and purpose of the HIA, leaded to discontentment on the part of those members of the public who believed they were going to contribute to a consultation on one topic and it transpires to be something else. He didn’t tell us properly what it was all about. He just said come along then it was flung at us. We were just sitting there. Normally you have a bit of something to read when you go into somewhere. Member of the public (Case 3) We thought it was a public meeting about the doctor’s surgery, so it was under false pretences really. This has happened before, this lack of communication. Member of the public (Case 3) This highlights that, although many members of the public found involvement in the HIA to be an empowering process, some did not. The importance of communication and clarification of aims and objectives of the HIA by those recruiting members of the public to the process needs to be emphasised in order to facilitate empowering participation. Due to the reluctance of members of some communities to attend a ‘formal’ meeting such as the HIA it was disguised as a fun day with the intention of attracting participation under some other guise. Members of the public and statutory sector representatives involved in some of the health impact
A further issue highlighted by respondents, particularly those in Communities First areas, was the need to build up respect and trust with communities before they are willing to participate in events such as health impact assessment. As mentioned previously members of the public may not be in regular contact with their local councils and may view them as remote. One of the cases examined stressed the importance of building relationships with communities through management boards, community leaders and in particular voluntary organisations, who may be considered to be more accessible, in order to better facilitate participation. Mis-selling A recurring theme within the interviews was the mis-selling (either intentional or unintentional), incentivising or disguising of HIA in order to facilitate participation and encourage people to come along. Instances of verbal recruitment of the public, either at other meetings or by word of mouth, contributes to this issue as workshop attendees are not then provided with the relevant literature explaining the process, as is recommended at the scoping meeting when potential participants are decided upon. If this information is not provided then there is also the potential for misunderstanding the topic and purpose of the HIA, leaded to discontentment on the part of those members of the public who believed they were going to contribute to a consultation on one topic and it transpires to be something else. He didn’t tell us properly what it was all about. He just said come along then it was flung at us. We were just sitting there. Normally you have a bit of something to read when you go into somewhere. Member of the public (Case 3) We thought it was a public meeting about the doctor’s surgery, so it was under false pretences really. This has happened before, this lack of communication. Member of the public (Case 3) This highlights that, although many members of the public found involvement in the HIA to be an empowering process, some did not. The importance of communication and clarification of aims and objectives of the HIA by those recruiting members of the public to the process needs to be emphasised in order to facilitate empowering participation. Due to the reluctance of members of some communities to attend a ‘formal’ meeting such as the HIA it was disguised as a fun day with the intention of attracting participation under some other guise. Members of the public and statutory sector representatives involved in some of the health impact