【Objective】Ingestion of soil is a pathway of human exposure to several environmental contaminants, including several heavy metals. Risk assessment of soils has typically been performed on total concentrations of target heavy metals. However, it may overestimate the potential adverse effects. To refine exposure risk, bioaccessibility and bioavailability measurements have been employed in many studies. Bioaccessibility tests are used to measure the bioaccessible fractions of contaminants in soils while bioavailability evaluates the fraction of heavy metals that reach the systemic circulation. These tests are both considered accurate approaches to evaluate the potential health risk of contaminants. However, there are few studies on the health risk assessment of heavy metals from mining soils via bioavailability. 【Method】In this study, five soil samples from the mining area of Wenshan, Yunnan Province were collected and the levels of Cd, Pb, Zn and Cu were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The bioaccessibility of Cd, Pb, Zn and Cu was detected using in vitro digestion method (SBRC), and the relative bioavailability (RBA) of Cd was determined by BALB/c mice models. The health risks of the four heavy metals in mining soils were assessed based on total, bioaccessible, and bioavailable data, respectively.【Result】The results showed that Cd pollution in this study area was serious, with the content being 2.06 mg·kg^-1, which was 9.36 folds higher than the limit of soil background value in Yunnan. The bioaccessibility of Cd, Pb, Zn and Cu in the gastric phase was 24.29%-50.55%, 7.68%-17.87%, 24.61%-32.18%, 7.75%-37.87%, respectively, while in intestinal phase, they were 22.78%-44.32%, 1.64%-5.22%, 14.10%-28.11%, 8.51%-31.49%, respectively. As evident, the bioaccessibility of Cd was the highest among the four heavy metals. The RBA of Cd measured in vivo was 1.31%-48.39% in the liver, 2.83%-8.58% in the kidney, and 4.60%-50.95% in the liver and kidney. Compared with a single endpoint, Cd-RBA in the liver and kidney provided better repeatability and were ideal target organs for the determination of Cd-RBA. In vivo-in vitro correlation showed that the bioavailability of Cd determined by SBRC had a poor potential to predict Cd-RBA in contaminated soils from the mining area in China. Health risk assessment of the mining soil based on the target heavy metals, bioaccessibility and bioavailability revealed that the assessment using the total heavy metals had greater human health risk, while the data based on bioaccessibility and bioavailability showed a significantly reduced risk. 【Conclusion】The health risks assessment based on the total heavy metals in soil may be overestimated, and the establishment of a new method based on the bioavailability data will be more accurate. Our results provide a scientific basis for the health risk assessment of contaminated soils in China.