Background

Health law as field of legal research and training is commonly understood in the United States to encompass public health, health care, mental health, food and drug regulation, environmental health, bioethics, and occupational safety and health. Law is an important component of health practice, regulating the financing and delivery of health care services, the development and distribution of pharmaceutical or other health-related products, and the activities a government undertakes to promote health and prevent illness. Health care, public health, and other related systems function best when a strong legal infrastructure exists to define the roles and authorities of product manufacturers, service providers, consumers, and public officials. Health law as a field of academic research and policy analysis also facilitates civil society participation in transparent, rational decisionmaking on matters that directly influence overall societal welfare. Health law experts identify, illuminate and frequently take an important advocacy role in addressing the need for policy and practice reform.

An important component of a nation's health law infrastructure is the capacity to teach, train, conduct research, and provide policy-advising and advocacy services in health law – the capacity to provide legal expertise and legal experts on health issues. A number of historical and cultural factors have contributed to the absence of health law from legal, medical, and public health education curricula in China. The accelerating economic changes in this country have wreaked havoc in old social sector frameworks without creating new structures for service provision, health care being the most notable among them. Vast funding shortages and antiquated regulatory schemes have meanwhile undercut China's ability to deal with new challenges in the form of epidemics, regional income disparities, and rising medical technology and drug costs. Economic reforms have also been accompanied by socio-cultural change, as Chinese society has moved away from an entirely austere, totalitarian model towards a more open system where ideas about participatory democracy and open society are taking root.

Therefore, it is vital that China develop the infrastructure to properly analyze and regulate the transformation in a way that helps address such major issues as health care access and quality, patient rights, professionalism of medical personnel, and discrimination associated with health status (especially HIV/AIDS and mental health). There are today only a handful of Chinese scholars or practitioners specializing in some aspect of health law, and there is no recognition of the field as a distinct area of study and practice. As a result, many questions about how laws relating to health and welfare fit into the wider framework of human rights, federal vs. local governance, environmental protection, and the regulation of the medical profession remain largely unexamined. In China, academics are an important and relatively privileged sector of civil society, with a fair degree of freedom to investigate and discuss social problems. Meanwhile, real NGO's are still rare; their establishment, effectiveness, and growth hampered by archaic, totalitarian regulatory structure. A cadre of experts in health law promises to help identify and implement health and social policies that are effective and just.

As was vividly demonstrated by the recent SARS epidemic, effective public health surveillance, regulation, and response systems are key to maintaining health in our inter-connected global environment. Already a power player in global politics, and a principal geographic node for travel and trade, China is posed for continued industrial and demographic growth over the course of the 21st Century. The creation of a health law framework will play a crucial role minimizing the ripple adverse health, environmental, and human rights impact of this development all across the world. Lessons learned in China, can be adopted in other countries in East and Southeast Asia.