Pages 830-831 in N. Murphy and A. Parkinson, eds. Circumpolar Health 2012: Circumpolar Health Comes Full Circle. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, August 5-10, 2012. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2013;72 (Suppl 1):830-831
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Health Impact Assessment Program Anchorage, Alaska
Source
Pages 830-831 in N. Murphy and A. Parkinson, eds. Circumpolar Health 2012: Circumpolar Health Comes Full Circle. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, August 5-10, 2012. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2013;72 (Suppl 1):830-831
The stakeholder engagement process frequently documents community concern over the potential project-related impacts to subsistence activities (1). Potential impacts included changes to quantity, quality (actual and perceived) and access to subsistence resources. The environmental impact assessment process typically develops detailed subsistence resource maps that focus on geography (resource footprint versus the project footprint)
and density (the quantity of the resource within a
defined footprint). Community harvesting practices are
often assessed. Social impact assessment work, including "traditional and local knowledge" surveys is an equally important tool that contributes to the critical role of subsistence activities in local communities. However, while both the environmental and social surveys are useful for the health impact assessment (2), we have found that these data are potentially insufficient for fully
analysing and categorising potential human health impacts from large extractive industry projects (3).