Environment and Health in China: an introduction to an emerging research field

Abstract

This paper is an introduction to the special issue. It provides an overview of the major environment-related health risks China faces, and a review of some of the responses currently being made by the government and societal actors. The paper concludes with a discussion of the contributions that the social sciences might make to our understanding of these issues.

Notes

^1. The major exception is the work of the Eco-Health Program at the International Development Research Centre. For more information see Jean Lebel, Health: An Ecosystem Approach (International Development Research Centre, 2003), available at: www.idrc.ca/in_focus.

^2. The World Bank, World Development Report 1993: Investing in Health (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

^*Jennifer Holdaway is a Program Director at the Social Science Research Council, where she heads the China Environment and Health Initiative. Her other research interests include internal and international migration, particularly in relation to development; Chinese migration; gendered perspectives on migration; migration and health; the integration of immigrant young adults; skilled migration and institutional development; and interdisciplinary research methods. She has written and/or edited a number of multi-disciplinary books and special journal topics on these issues. She is grateful to David Norse and Fang Jing for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. She would also like to thank all the participants at April 2008 Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, and the planning meetings that preceded it, for their insights into the issues discussed here.

^3. See http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/national/countryprofile/china.pdf.

^4. David A. Taylor, ‘Is environmental health a basic human right?’, Environmental Health Perspectives 112, (2004); Sarah Cook, ‘Putting health back in China's development’, China Perspectives 3, (2007), pp. 100–108.

^5. This article draws on a review of relevant literature, on a series of meetings held by the SSRC's China Environment and Health Initiative over the last two years, and on interviews conducted with researchers, officials and NGOs between 2006 and 2008. For more information about CEHI see http://programs.ssrc.org/eastasia/china/.

^6. This introduction can only offer a brief sketch of environmental health risks. For a more comprehensive account see: Wang Wuyi, Yang Linsheng, Li Hairong and Li Yonghua, ‘Environmental change and health in China: risks, management and research’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008. See also Wang Wuyi, Yang Linsheng, Thomas Kraft and Mark Rosenberg, eds, Global Environmental Change and Health [Quanqiu huanjing bianhua yu jiankang] (China Meteorological Press, 2008). Readers are also referred to the China Environment and Health Resource Hub at ceh.resourcehub.ssrc.org.

^7. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China: Economic Estimates of Physical Damages (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2007); Ministry of Health, 2007 nian woguo weisheng shiye fazhan tongji baogao [2007 Statistical Report on Health Sector Development], available at: http://www.moh.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/mohbgt/s6689/200804/33525.htm.

^8. Wang et al., ‘Environmental change and health in China’.

^9. The World Bank, China: Water Quality Management: Policy and Institutional Considerations (Washington, DC: The World Bank, September 2006).

^10. Jessica Hamburger, ‘Pesticides in China: a growing threat to food safety, public health, and the environment’, China Environment Series 5, (2003), pp. 29–44.

^11. Changhua Wu et al., ‘Research review: water pollution and human health in China’, Environmental Health Perspectives 107, (1999).

^12. Zhang Jialing, ‘The management of hazardous waste in China’, China Environment Forum Research Brief, available at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/haz_waste_management_jul07.pdf.

^13. See for example, Anna O. W. Leung, Nurdan S. Duzgoren-Aydin, K. C. Cheung and Ming H. Wong, ‘Heavy metals concentrations of surface dust from e-waste recycling and its human health implications in Southeast China’, Environmental Science and Technology 42(7), (2008), pp. 2674–2680 (accessed online 4 March 2008).

^14. For a good overview of outdoor air pollution see Mun S. Ho and Chris Nielsen, eds, Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007); see also Yok-Shiu F. Lee, Carlos Wing-hung Lo and Anna Ka-yin Lee, ‘Strategy misguided: the weak links between urban emission control measures, vehicular emissions, and public health in Guangzhou’, Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^15. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China. See also Wang Wuyi, Th. Kraft and F. Kraas, eds, Global Change, Urbanization and Health (Beijing: China Meteorological Press, 2006).

^16. Li Zijun, ‘Soil quality deteriorating in China, threatening public health and ecosystems’, World Watch, (2006), available at: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4419; Hamburger, ‘Pesticides in China’.

^17. Yang Yang and Jennifer Turner, ‘Food safety in China’, China Environmental Health Project Research Brief (China Environment Forum); Linden J. Ellis and Jennifer Turner, ‘Surf and turf: environmental and food safety concerns of China's aquaculture and animal husbandry’, China Environment Series 9, (2007), available at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id = 1421&fuseaction = topics.item&news_id = 249492.

^18. Su Zhi, Wang Sheng and Steven P. Levine, ‘National occupational health service policies and programs for workers in small-scale industries in China’, American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal 61, (2000), pp. 842–849.

^19. Zhao Tiehui, ‘Guanzhu nongmingong cujin anquan shengchan zhuangkuang de wending haozhuan’ [‘Considering migrant workers: promoting a smooth transition to safer production’], in Li Zhen, ed., Gongshangzhe: Nongmingong, zhiye anquan yu jiankang quanyi lunji [Analects on Occupational Safety and Health Right of Migrant Worker (sic)] (Social Science Academies Press, 2005).

^20. Associated Press, 2006, cited in World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China, p. 39.

^21. Lei Zhang, Arthur P. Mol and David A. Sonnenfeld, ‘The interpretation of ecological modernisation in China’, Environmental Politics 16, (2007), pp. 659–668.

^22. See Kirk Smith, ‘Comparative environmental health assessments: a brief introduction and application to China’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 140, (2008), pp. 130–139.

^23. A. Pruss-Ustun and C. Corvalan, Preventing Disease through Healthy Environments: Towards an Estimate of the Environmental Burden of Disease (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2006).

^24. Li Zhen, ed., Gongshangzhe.

^25. Some 75% of low income households in rural China have no access to piped water, compared to 47% of higher income categories. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China.

^26. Tim Wright, ‘The political economy of coal mine disasters in China: “your rice bowl or your life”’, The China Quarterly 179, (2004), pp. 629–646.

^27. R. J. Wilkinson, The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier (London: Routledge, 2005).

^28. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/2008 (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2007).

^29. Ministry of Health, 2003 National Health Services Survey (Beijing: Ministry of Health, 2004).

^30. UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008.

^31. World Bank, Physical and Economic Burdens from Air and Water Pollution in China (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2006).

^32. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China.

^33. Ministry of Health, 2007 nian woguo weisheng shiye fazhan tongji baogao [National Health Services Development Report 2007] (Beijing: Ministry of Health, 2008). In 2007, malignant tumors accounted for 29% of reported deaths in urban and 25% in rural counties surveyed by the Ministry of Health. Respiratory disorders, which are also strongly correlated with environmental factors, accounted for 13% and 15%, respectively.

^34. Ministry of Health, 2007 nian woguo weisheng shiye fazhan tongji baogao. In 2007, malignant tumors accounted for 29% of reported deaths in urban and 25% in rural counties surveyed by the Ministry of Health. Respiratory disorders, which are also strongly correlated with environmental factors, accounted for 13% and 15%, respectively

^35. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China. The difference is due to different ways of calculating the cost. The first used the present value of per capita GDP over the remainder of the individual's lifetime. This is based on a base of 280,000 yuan for urban areas. The second percentage uses a value of a statistical life of one million yuan, reflecting people's willingness to pay to avoid mortality risks. Unlike previous studies these estimates are computed for individual cities and provinces.

^36. ‘As China roars, pollution reaches dangerous extremes’, New York Times, (26 August 2007).

^37. Smith, ‘Comparative environmental health assessments’.

^38. World Bank, China: Water Quality Management.

^39. Ministry of Health, 2007 nian woguo weisheng shiye fazhan tongji baogao.

^40. UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/8, pp. 49 and 77.

^41. Lee et al., ‘Strategy misguided’.

^42. Li Liping, ‘Occupational illness and disease in China: challenges of data collection and management’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^43. Tan Shen, cited in Xiang Biao, ‘Migration and health in China: problems, obstacles, and solutions’, in Asian Metacenter Research Paper Series 17 (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2004).

^44. Zheng Zhenzhen and Pengling Lian, ‘Health vulnerabilities of migrant workers’, paper presented at XXV International Population Conference, Tours, France, 18–23 July 2005.

^45. For more detail, see Li Zhen, ed., Gongshangzhe, p. 11.

^46. World Bank, The Cost of Pollution in China; OECD Environmental Performance Reviews (China: OECD, 2007).

^47. See China Environment Forum factsheets for links to the relevant legislation. For a history of the development of environmental legislation see Elizabeth Economy, The River Runs Black (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

^48. Alex Wang, ‘Environmental health and the law’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^49. Alex Wang, ‘Environmental health and the law’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008

^50. See, for example, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's ‘Report on the work of the government’, delivered at the First Session of the Eleventh National People's Congress on 5 March 2008.

^51. Zhang Shiqiu, ‘China's environmental regulatory system reform: responding to the health impact of environmental degradation’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^52. For a discussion of the development of China's risk management system, see Lei Zhang and Lijin Zhong, ‘Integrating and prioritizing environmental risks in China's risk management discourse’, Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^53. ‘In food safety scandal, China closes 180 plants’, New York Times, (27 June 2007).

^54. Zhang Shiqiu, ‘China's environmental regulatory system reform’; Benjamin van Rooij, ‘Implementation of China's environmental law: regular enforcement or political campaigns’, in Peter Ho and Eduard B. Vermeer, eds, China's Limits to Growth: Greening State and Society (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006).

^55. Fang Jing and Gerry Bloom, ‘China's rural health system and environment-related health risks’, Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^56. Kerrie McPherson, ‘Public health and the environment in China: everything old is new again’, presentation at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^57. The initiative aims to provide universal healthcare and bring China's public health indicators up to those of a middle-income country by 2020.

^58. Zhang Shiqiu, ‘China's environmental regulatory system reform’.

^59. Joint Document of the Ministry of Health and SEPA, ‘Notification regarding the establishment of a mechanism for cooperation between the Ministry of Health and SEPA’, Ministry of Health Monitoring Office 74 (issued 26 February 2007).

^60. Ministry of Health (MOH), China National Environmental Health Action Plan (2007–2015) [Guojia huanjing yu jiankang xingdong jihua] (China Ministry of Health, 2007), available at: http://www.moh.gov.cn/open/web_edit_file/20071108173502.doc.

^61. Benjamin van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China, Lawmaking, Compliance, and Enforcement: Theory and Cases (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2006).

^62. Carlos Wing-hung Lo and Shui-yan Tang, ‘Institutional reform, economic changes, and local environmental management in China: the case of Guangdong’, in Neil T. Carter and Arthur P. J. Mol, eds, Environmental Governance in China (London: Routledge, 2007).

^63. Lee et al., ‘Strategy misguided’.

^64. Sun Jing, ‘Presentation on the work of the Pesticides Eco-Alternatives Center’, presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^65. Han Shi and Le Zhang, ‘China's environmental governance of rapid industrialisation’, Environmental Politics 15(2), (2006), pp. 271–292.

^66. Zhang and Zhong, ‘Integrating and prioritizing environmental risks in China's risk management discourse’.

^67. For information about the CCICED see: http://www.vancouver.sfu.ca/dlam/.

^68. The World Bank's Environmental Health at a Glance estimates the cost of some basic interventions, including water connections and hygiene modification at US$40 per person or less. See http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPHAAG/Resources/AAGEHEng.pdf.

^69. See for example, Anna Lora-Wainwright, ‘An anthropology of “cancer villages”: villagers’ perspectives and the politics of responsibility', Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^70. Zheng Baohua, ‘Biogas in rural China: progress and challenges’, paper presented at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008.

^71. Xue Lan, Udo E. Simonis, Daniel J. Dudek et al., ‘Environmental governance in China’, Report of the Task Force on Environmental Governance to the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), Beijing, China, November 2006.

^72. Susmita Dasgupta, Benoit Laplante, Nlandu Mamingi and Hua Huang, ‘Industrial environmental performance in China: the impact of inspections’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, no. 2285, (February 2000), available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id = 629142.

^73. Hani and Zhang, ‘China's environmental governance of rapid industrialisation’.

^74. United Nations in China, ‘Advancing food safety in China’, Occasional Paper, (March 2008), available at: http://www.un.org.cn/public/resource/2aebcd033e334d961fefb1588b70f2ab.pdf.

^75. D. O'Rourke and G. D. Brown, ‘Experience in transforming the global workplace: incentives for and impediments to improving workplace conditions in China’, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health 9(4), (2003), p. 380; International Labor Organization, Strategies and Practice for Labor Inspection, GB297/ESP/3 (Geneva: ILO, November 2006).

^76. Wang et al., ‘Environmental change and health in China’.

^77. Zhang Jingjing, ‘Zhongguo huanjing qinquan susong (jiankang sunshilei) shilei fenxi’ [‘Analysis of health related cases in environmental rights litigation in China’], presentation at the Social Science Research Council International Workshop on Environment and Health in China, Hong Kong, 17–20 April 2008; see also Benjamin van Rooij, ‘The people vs. pollution: understanding citizen action against pollution in China’, Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^78. OECD, Governance in China (Paris: OECD, 2005) points to the relative strength in this area of cities like Dalian, Shanghai, Xiamen and Nantong. For a ranking of 31 towns and cities on an index of sustainability see also the China Modernization Report: Study on Ecological Modernization (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007).

^79. James A. Listorti and Fadi M. Doumani, ‘Environmental health: bridging the gap’, World Bank Discussion Papers 422, (1996), p. 11; OECD Working Group on National Environmental Policies, Improving Coordination between National Environmental and Health Policies: Final Report (Paris: OCED, October 2006).

^80. Wang et al., ‘Environmental change and health in China’.

^81. World Bank, China: Water Quality Management; Wang et al., ‘Environmental change and health in China’.

^82. See for example, United Nations in China, ‘Advancing food safety in China’.

^83. Zhao Jimin, ‘Wither the car? China's automobile industry and cleaner vehicle technologies’, in Ho and Vermeer, eds, China's Limits to Growth.

^84. Peter Ho, ‘China's limits to growth: the difference between absolute, relative, and precautionary limits’, in Ho and Vermeer, eds, China's Limits to Growth.

^85. Van Rooij, ‘Implementation of China's environmental law’.

^86. Guobin Yang, ‘Brokering environment and health in China: issue entrepreneurs of the public sphere’, Journal of Contemporary China 19(63), (2010).

^87. Kevin O'Brien, ‘Rightful resistance’, World Politics 9(1), (1996), pp. 31–55.

^88. Van Rooij, ‘The people vs. pollution’.

^89. See http://www.ipe.org.cn/.

^90. Organizations working in this area include the Institute for Contemporary Observation in Shenzhen, and the Guangzhou Workers Service Center. Business for Social Responsibility approaches the issue from the other side, working with employers to improve labor standards, including those related to occupational health and safety.

^91. Peter Ho, ‘Self-imposed censorship and de-politicized politics in China: green politics or a color revolution’, in Peter Ho and David Edmonds, eds, China's Embedded Activism; Opportunities and Constraints of a Social Movement (London: Routledge, 2008).

^92. Yang, ‘Brokering environment and health in China’; van Rooij, ‘The people vs. pollution’.

^93. Yang Guobin, ‘Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China’, The China Quarterly 181, (2005), pp. 46–66.

^94. Van Rooij, ‘The people vs. pollution’.

^95. Van Rooij, ‘The people vs. pollution’

^96. Lora-Wainwright, ‘An anthropology of “cancer villages”’.

^97. Jun Jing, ‘Environmental protests in rural China’, in Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden, eds, Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 143–160.

^98. Wright, ‘The political economy of coal mine disasters in China’.

^99. Bryan Tilt, ‘Perceptions of risk from industrial pollution in China: a comparison of occupational groups’, Human Organization 65, (2006), pp. 115–127.

^100. Lora-Wainwright, ‘An anthropology of “cancer villages”’.

^101. For example, Richard Wilkinson and Michael Marmot, The Social Determinants of Health: the Solid Facts, 2nd edn (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2003).

^102. To note just a few major books: Vaclav Smil, China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of Growth (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993); Richard Louis Edmonds, Managing the Chinese Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Economy, The River Runs Black; Ho and Vermeer, eds, China's Limits to Growth; Carter and Mol, eds, Environmental Governance in China.