Health impact assessment in two planning projects in England: reflections on normative effectiveness.

Background: This article reports on research commissioned by (what was at the time) Public Health England (PHE). The objective is to reflect on the normative effectiveness of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) applied to two planning projects; (a) the new town at Cranbrook, Devon (HIA prepared in 2007), and (b) the regeneration of the Marsh farm area in Luton (HIA prepared in 2009). In this context, the focus is on the contribution of HIA to actions that are intended to lead to good or improved health and wellbeing.