Environmental Health Assessment

Health Canada is committed to making this country's population among the healthiest in the world and works closely with other federal departments, agencies and health stakeholders to reduce health and safety risks to Canadians.

What is Health Canada's role?

We are responsible for ensuring that human health is included as a component of environmental assessments. The goal is to ensure that health implications of proposed development projects, including mines, highways and energy projects, which involve the federal government, are identified and evaluated to minimize risks to human health.

Through our Environmental Assessment Division (EAD), Health Canada provides single-window access to all departmental activities under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).

Our responsibilities include:

• Coordinating and focusing the involvement of Health Canada in the environmental assessment process;
• Reviewing the health component of federal environmental assessment projects;
• Coordinating the preparation and presentation of the Department's scientific health information for other federal departments, public review panels or mediators;
• Providing notice, through a public registry, of Health Canada projects subject to CEAA;
• Sharing our knowledge with representatives of other countries to develop environmental health assessment processes, regulations and scientific knowledge at the international level; and
• Promoting health impact assessments.

Additional Resources

• Publications