POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1691412
Institutionalization of Health Impact Assessment in China: Status quo, Challenges and Perspectives
Provisionally accepted
- Soochow University, Kenneth Wang School of Law, Suzhou, 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
Background Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a critical tool for integrating health into public policy. While China has advanced HIA institutionalization through national legislation, a comprehensive analysis of its implementation across different levels of governance is needed. Methods This study conducts a systematic policy analysis of national laws, subnational pilot programs, and technical guidelines to examine the development of HIA in China. The analysis focuses on institutional arrangements, drivers, and barriers identified in key regions, including Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Shanghai. Results The analysis reveals that despite innovative subnational models such as Zhejiang's AI-powered decision-support system, national implementation remains fragmented. Key challenges include unclear institutional mandates, a critical tension between health-led and department-led assessment processes, and limited public participation. Conclusions We conclude that sustainable HIA institutionalization in China requires not only dedicated legislation but also deeper integration with the Health in All Policies (HiAP) framework, coupled with robust mechanisms for transparency and accountability. These findings offer a roadmap for China and a comparative case for HIA development in other complex governance systems.
Keywords: Health Impact Assessment, HIA, Institutionalization, China, policy
Received: 23 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 XUE. 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: SHENYAN XUE, 1132420114@alu.hit.edu.cn
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.