Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (NRDC), together with Chinese partners, has launched a cross-disciplinary project to evaluate the circumstances under which environment and health professionals work, particularly at the local levels. One of the goals is to find out what types of interventions are practicable at this stage in China, according to attorney Alex Wang, who directs NRDC's China Environmental Law Project.

"China needs a process that will allow it to identify health risks in the most efficient way," he said. "But at the same time, management of environmental health risk is subject to significant resource constraints." The challenge is to find ways to work within these current limitations—whether in terms of individual or institutional capacity, available funding, public awareness levels, or other constraints—in order to arrive at some initial assessments of the impact of pollution on human health.

A key component of NRDC's project is a collaborative, case-based research study that engages environmental, health, and legal specialists. Concentrating on a mining and smelting region in Yunnan province, the team is working to find ways to determine residents' exposure to contaminated drinking water, food supplies, or soil; assess the related levels of risk for disease; and then recommend appropriate health interventions and governance reforms.

The research team's efforts illustrate the potential for moving forward, even while recognizing weaknesses that will need to be addressed in the future. Recognizing that Chinese officials will seldom, if ever, have the resources to conduct full-blown epidemiological studies to assess health risk and exposure to pollutants, the research team is working to develop a risk and exposure assessment process that fits China's current circumstances. The findings from such an assessment process-more cost-effective and streamlined because it draws on assumptions and comparable data-could still be useful and persuasive to decision makers.

Part of the value of a local-level pilot project is the opportunity to apply policy in a real-world setting: the outcome might be a better understanding of what really drives people and companies, which in turn can be used by policymakers to create incentives for compliance or stronger means for enforcement. The feedback from pilot projects, such as the one in Yunnan, can help the Chinese government carry out its National Environmental Health Action Plan or provide models that can be replicated in other parts of the country.

Another benefit of the project is that health, environmental, and legal professionals are able to broaden their perspectives beyond their own discrete disciplines. As they begin to incorporate the basic building blocks of each others' disciplines into their own work, the foundation for the nascent field of environmental health grows stronger and the outlook for innovative, collaborative work becomes more promising. As the NRDC project moves forward, it will continue to invest in the capacity of these specialists, through training programs and exposure to models used in other countries.