Environmental Health Standard Framework in China during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan

With the increasing proportion of environmental pollution factors in all the risk factors to human health and more and more frequent appearance of various environmental health damage incidents, environmental health problems in China had been paid much attention to by the governments and researchers. However, there lacked a completed environmental health standard framework, which could not satisfy the requirements of environmental health situation. The environmental health situation in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) was analyzed and the suggestions on the environmental health framework and priority standards list presented, based on an analysis of current standards and overseas experiences. The results showed that there should be four layers of environmental health standards, i.e. that of limits, assessment methods, management norms as well as related basic standards. The contents should cover the fields of environmental health survey, environmental health risk assessment and environmental health risk management. During the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period, environmental health survey and risk assessment guidelines and related basic standards should be initiated as priorities.