Reporting Working Group

Reimagining Show & Share: Being Creative and Purposeful in HIA Reporting

Leads

Please contact SOPHIA if you are interested in this topic. 

In Brief

This Working Group focused on the reporting phase of the HIA process and will aim to advance the practice by exploring how we can be creative and purposeful in our reporting so that we: 1) better translate HIA findings in a succinct, digestible form, 2) are intentional in our efforts to reach a range of audiences in a way that is relevant to them, and 3) provide information in a timely manner. Participants will collectively identify a range of potential activities that this Working Group can come together to prioritize and advance over the course of 18 months.

Objectives

The objectives of this Working Group are to advance reporting in HIA practice by identifying: a) Opportunities for improving the translation and dissemination of HIA findings and recommendations that can support underlying HIA values (e.g., equity, democracy, ethical use of evidence); and b) Challenges (as well as ways to work around them) to re-imagining the timing, content, presentation format and other aspects of HIA reporting.

Rationale

HIA practitioners will tell you that HIA findings and recommendations need to reach decision makers or communities facing inequities in a form that can be easily digested and with sufficient time prior to key decision points. And yet, there are limited examples in the field of creative and purposeful reporting beyond the 200-page report plus executive summary, more or less at the end of the HIA process. Thus, it seems that one of the challenges in HIA reporting lies in determining how to be transparent and forthcoming with HIA research, while still sharing the key findings in a compelling, digestible, and timely manner. This working group will explore the ways in which practitioners can bring innovation to HIA reporting, particularly opportunities to advance core values in this step.

Next Steps

A guidance document on HIA reporting which identifies the different audiences for messaging at each phase of the HIA and gives examples of different media used for each audience. It is intended to answer the following question: “How do you determine the best media/mode for sharing your data with the various stakeholder groups?”

The group also will produce a crosswalk of audiences and reporting mechanisms for communication (such as op ed pieces, websites, podcasts, etc.) and explore new tools and resources for data translation in HIA reporting.

The working group will also develop examples of reporting formats and tools that have had been determined to be effective.