Everything You Need to Know About Social Impact Assessment

A vital part of planning any new policy, program, plan, or project is understanding how that intervention will affect people and their environment.



Will a proposed change in hospital policy have a negative impact on the health of a community? Will a new highway to a city offer more positive than negative effects for nearby retailers?



These are the types of questions that are answered through a socio-economic impact assessment.



Examples of social impact can vary widely depending on the type of intervention that is planned. For example, a construction project can affect the environment for both humans and animals. If the planned change is policy related, then there may be political impacts that emerge from the social impact assessment reports.



The social impact of road construction will require a certain set of variables when doing a social impact analysis. A new program for lending in underserved areas will have a completely different meaning of social impact.



The definition of social impact will vary according to the types of changes that your project, plan, program or policy will make in a community and in the daily lives of the people who live there. This makes a social impact assessment report one of the most complex page of any type of impact assessment.



But it is also one of the most important.



It is vital to understand how an intervention will affect people and their environment. Without doing a social impact assessment or an environmental social impact assessment, a project or policy could cause irreparable harm to a community or serious unintended consequences.



What is social impact?



Before you can begin any social impact assessment, you must understand the answer to "What is social impact?"



You may be wondering, "What exactly does 'social' mean?" Additionally, you will often find that the EIA and SIA are used together when researching the definition of social impact.



We will start with those two acronyms, EIA and SIA. They represent environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment. These two types of impact evaluations are closely related. One is more aimed at people, the assessment of social impacts. And one is aimed at the environment, the assessment of environmental impacts.



You will also often find that EIA SIA is done together because the environment and people are closely related. For example, if a business contaminates a nearby water supply during a new construction project, that will affect both the environment and the people in that environment.



So, in many cases, the meaning of social impact also includes environmental impacts as part of social impacts.



What does social impact mean?



The definition of social impact is: The effect on communities and people that can occur as a result of an intervention or non-intervention taken when implementing a policy, program, plan or project.



Before we get into the large scale of social impact examples, let's take a look at one that most people can personally identify with to better understand the concept.



Imagine that you are renovating your kitchen. The project will impact your family in a number of ways. It may mean that you have to eat takeout for two weeks because you don't have a refrigerator or stove. It can also mean that there are a lot of heavy knocks in your house over a period of time.



What are examples of social impacts?



Because there are so many different types of social and economic impacts that could be caused by a project, policy, plan or program, impacts are generally classified into five key categories when doing a social impact analysis.



Categories help when creating social impact assessment reports because they separate the types of impacts that may need to be addressed in different groups. For example, one group may reflect political impacts and another may include individual and family impacts.



When creating a social impact assessment PPT questionnaire to collect data for a social impact assessment, it is a good idea to place impacts in these categories for ease of management.



Conclusion



Every time a new project, plan, program or policy change is going to affect a group of people in a community, it is important to conduct a social impact assessment. This type of evaluation and report makes sense of the social impact in terms of the positive and negative effects on the community and the people who live and work there.



Social impact assessment reports can shape project parameters to mitigate potentially harmful results. Its goal is to ensure fairness for all involved, promote positive impacts and reduce negative ones.



The answer to "What is a social impact?" It will vary from project to project, but the rationale for assessing impacts on humans and their environment remains the same. It is a methodical process that is very detailed and is also vital to the success of any major intervention in a community.



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