Gerald Bloom is Leader of the Health and Social Change Team at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Shenglan Tang is a Senior Lecturer in the International Health, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.

• Contents: China in transition: challenges to urban health services, Gerald Bloom; Introduction to the urban health system and review of reform initiatives, Shenglan Tang and Qingyue Meng; The cities, the people and their health, Youlong Gong, Qingyue Meng, Wei Wang and Shenglan Tang; The health systems of Nantong and Zibo, Qingyue Meng, Zhonghua Weng, Ning Zhuang, Wei Wang, Qiang Sun, Yuelai Lu, Baogang Shu and Gerald Bloom; Access to and use of health care services by employees and their families, Henry Lucas, Jiaying Chen and Zhonghua Weng; Urban health reform in China: the impact on vulnerable groups, Jiaying Chen, Henry Lucas and Youlong Gong; Health and vulnerability, Thomas Uhlemann and Fei Yan; Gendered impacts and implications of health sector reform in the context of multiple transitions in urban China, Rachel Tolhurst, Hilary Standing and Xu Qian; The public hospitals: policy reform, productivity and cost, Qingyue Meng, Clas Rehnberg, Ning Zhuang, Ying Bian and Shenglan Tang; The impact of health insurance reform on hospital charges: a comparison of Nantong and Zibo, Clas Rehnberg, Qingyue Meng, Ying Bian, Ning Zhuang and Shenglan Tang; Conclusions and recommendations, Gerald Bloom, Qingyue Meng and Shenglan Tang; Annex: research methods; Bibliography; Index.

’The multidisciplinary contributors provide an excellent combination of general observation on healthcare reform and sound and specific policy recommendations based on detailed fieldwork in the two sites of Nantong and Zibo...The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the reform of urban healthcare systems in general and in China specifically. It provides a fascinating view of how the roles of the state, market and civil society in providing healthcare have changed over the last 20 years and how they must evolve further in the future.’ Professor Tony Saich, Harvard University, USA