ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1599907
Can Advancing Environmental Justice Safeguard Elderly Health? -Evidence from China's Establishment of Environmental Courts
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of International Relations, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 2Chengdu University, Chengdu, China
- 3Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 4Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China
- 5Dukekunshan University, Kushan, China
- 6Chengdu Jincheng College, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 7Chengdu Eighth People’s Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 8West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Amidst global population aging, enhancing the health and well-being of older adults has become a critical concern. The role of environmental justice in influencing elderly health, however, remains underexplored. Utilizing five waves of data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) between 2011 and 2020, this study examines the impact of environmental courts on older adults' health using a multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) model. Results show that environmental tribunals significantly improved elderly health, with more pronounced benefits for individuals in cities along the Yangtze and Yellow River Basins, those with lower educational attainment, and residents of non-resource-based cities. Mechanism analyses indicate that stricter enforcement of environmental penalties, improved water quality, and reduced air pollution are key pathways driving these improvements. Policy recommendations include expanding the establishment of environmental courts nationwide, implementing targeted and region-specific policies, increasing public awareness about environmental courts, and enhancing mechanisms for policy evaluation and feedback. These measures aim to foster a synergistic relationship between environmental governance and public health improvement.
Keywords: environmental courts1, Environmental justice2, environmental regulation3, elderly health4, Difference-in-Differences (DID) models5
Received: 08 Apr 2025; Accepted: 06 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jing, Zhang, Du, Liu, Qing, Chen, He, Peng and Ye. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jiling Ye, Chengdu Eighth People’s Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.