Mongolia’s rapid economic growth, propelled by rapid development of the extractives sector requires that the country be better prepared for potential negative impacts to the health of the people and the country. With the support of an SFU-based team of researchers and policy advocates, Mongolia is thus in the process of adopting Health Impact Assessments (HIA), a policy innovation tool that has potential to inform the decision making process through assessing underlying health problems and generating evidence-based recommendations.

However, the values, principles, methods and deliverables of HIA are not easily understood in capacity-limited Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) settings, including Mongolia, which makes full adoption and proper use of HIA a difficult process to achieve. The overall goal of the research was to evaluate the uptake and adoption rate of the HIA concepts, tools and methods in the emerging Mongolian mining sector.   In this presentation some of the initial findings of this research will be discussed and recommendations presented.