Developing Environment and Health Policy in China

Abstract

This paper reviews the development of health policy related to environmental pollution in China and discusses tasks for further policy development. In the last decade the Chinese government has more actively responded to environmental health issues. For example, it has established a new office of environmental health monitoring, conducted an epidemiological survey on the relationship between water pollution and cancer mortality in a river basin, and issued an action plan for the environment and human health. People's concerns about health risks from smog, drinking water pollution, heavy-metal contamination in the soil, and food contamination as its consequences have also been increasing due partly to news reports by official media and sensational disclosure by social media. These environmental health risks seem to have finally become important targets for Chinese policy. This paper outlines the possibilities and limitations in tackling these issues through the lens of recent policy developments. In order to secure people's health and well-being under persistent environmental pollution, it is necessary to develop health-centered policies as soon as possible.

Keywords:

• China's environmental policy
• policy development
• health risks
• environmental pollution
• environment and health

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kenji Otsuka

Kenji Otsuka is Senior Research Fellow in the Environment and Natural Resource Studies Group at the Interdisciplinary Studies Center, Institute of Developing Economies (IDE), JETRO in Chiba, Japan. He received an MS in environmental science at Tsukuba University. His research interests include environmental policies and governance, water and river basin governance, ecological crises, and sustainability in China and other Asian countries. He has been organizing joint research projects and conducting field research in China for many years. He published the article, “Strategies for Fragmentary Opportunities and Limited Resources: The Environmental Protest Movement under Communist China in Transition” in Protest and Social Movements in the Developing World, Shinichi Shigetomi and Kumiko Makino eds. Edward Elgar, 2009 as a book chapter, and just recently edited Ecological Crisis and Sustainability: A Synthesis of Field Studies, IDE-JETRO, 2015, as a multi-authored Japanese book.