Programs

China Environment and Health Initiative

Generating new research on the connection between health, environment, and development in China

A Chinese public health expert (far right) teams up with a British anthropologist to interview members of rural families in Yunan about their environmental health concerns, May 2009.

China's rapid industrialization and urbanization have given rise to a range of environmentally-related threats to human health. While the health effects of are becoming clear, the drivers of these problems, and the challenges they raise for governance have yet to be adequately explored. The SSRC's China, Environment and Health Initiative seeks to foster collaboration among researchers from the social, medical and environmental sciences, and to promote the generation and dissemination of new, social science-based research on environment and health. CEHI works in close collaboration with Chinese partner institutions through the Forum On Health Environment and Development (FORHEAD) .

Key components of the program include:
  • A Collaborative Grants Program to support innovative, policy oriented research on environment and health in China.
  • An annual Summer Institute to strengthen capacity for cross-disciplinary research on environment and health in China.
  • An Annual Conference to promote communication and collaboration across the natural, medical and social sciences on environment and health issues

New initiatives include:

  • collaborations with local government to address environmental impacts on health at the county level
  • a mapping of China’s food system in collaboration with the Food Climate Research Network
  • a new program on faculty and curriculum development on environment health and development for Chinese higher education institutions

An overview of environment-related health risks in China and related social science literature by Program Director Jennifer Holdaway is available here.  For more information, see the 2010 Journal of Contemporary China special issue and the FORHEAD website.

For the map of the Project Sites of SSRC Collaborative Grants 2008-2012, please visit: http://www.forhead.org/en/support

The China Environment and Health Initiative is supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the United Board.

  
Program Director
Jennifer Holdaway
Contacts
Program Staff

Grants

Projects

Additional Information