Interagency Aspects of Environmental Policy: The Case of Environmental Health

National government agencies typically are fragmented into fields, such as health, environment, transportation, economy and agriculture. Yet, advancing environmental health (EH) policy requires collaboration across agencies. This paper maps instruments for interagency EH cooperation, explores EH policy dynamics in Israel and identifies implications for policy integration. Twenty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted with policy-makers and other stakeholders, and two integration instruments were explored in depth: an interministerial committee and a parliamentary committee. The examination revealed that integration of EH considerations may occur in various policy-making settings and is sensitive to other inhibiting and facilitating factors, e.g. power relations and political will. In this preliminary qualitative study, higher levels of integration in the policy process did not result in more integrated EH outputs. We conclude that integration of EH considerations can take many forms and levels of cooperation, but always requires attention to the local setting, specific inhibitors and evaluation of outcomes.