Healthy public policy--is health impact assessment the cornerstone?

The 8th International Health Impact Assessment Conference, entitled 'Healthy public policy--is health impact assessment the cornerstone?', was hosted by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH). At the event, IPH sponsored a keynote speech to set the context of the conference and outline the importance of healthy public policy. This article presents an overview of healthy public policy and the barriers to its adoption in policy-making. Health impact assessment is one such tool to overcome the barriers, and the authors recommend the methodology as the cornerstone to healthy public policy.