ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the making and implementation of various aspects of environmental law and policy in China. It considers which environmental policy intersects with two other crucial policy domains: health and development. The chapter first lays out the rationale for this integrated approach and then analyses the way in which these three policy sectors have interacted over time, highlighting shifting patterns of intersection and dislocation. Although the social environment is also important for health, the chapter focuses on risks stemming from the degradation of the physical environment, and in particular from pollution associated with industrialization, urbanization and the intensification of agriculture. Pollution-related health impacts have complex causality and different pollutants have different effects on health, individually and in combination, over different time frames and geographies. In considering what is special about China's situation with regard to environment and health, a number of factors stand out.
