Balancing Environment, Health and Development: Evolving Policy Interactions

This chapter examines the impact of pollution on health in China and related policies across a number of sectors. It traces the evolution of the environment and health problems that have resulted from China’s rapid economic growth, highlighting their complex causality and their variation across regions with different levels of development and economic structures. While environment and health is now firmly on the policy agenda and public concern has prompted aggressive new measures in the environmental protection, health and other policy streams, progress is difficult in light of the reliance of many poor regions on polluting industries and the rapid pace of urbanization. Effective implementation will require not only stronger environmental regulation and enforcement, but also policies to ensure that the costs of reducing pollution do not fall disproportionately on poor regions and communities