The vision of ASEAN, charted in December 1997, in the ASEAN Vision 2020 was “of ASEAN as a
concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and
prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies”.

The ongoing processes of economic development and integration, intensified with modern
globalization, are creating new challenges for the ASEAN Community and have the potential
to create both positive and negative impacts on the well-being and quality of life of both
individuals and communities. Negative impacts which have arisen have included
development-induced disasters, pollution of soil, air and water supplies, natural resource
depletion, climate change and global warming, population displacement and the deterioration
of the social determinants of health.
ASEAN as a community needs to have an enhanced awareness and commitment to improving the multitude of factors impacting on the well-being of ASEAN peoples

HIA as defined by the World Health Organisation, is a combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, programme or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population.

HIA is an important process for the protection and promotion of human health from possible impacts/effects of the processes of regional economic integration and environmental change.
Recommendations from Chiang Mai Declaration on HIA for the Development of Healthy Societies in Asia Pacific Region in 2009 is “ASEAN shall set up a working group which consists of experts in the field of HIA to attain the following objectives:
to establish a body of knowledge, to share studies and technical documents on HIA and to support capacity building on HIA”.