Environmental Health courses with a global focus, still open for Spring 2014!
EH749 Global Environmental Health (This course counts towards IH credit)
Content: This class introduces students to 1) frameworks for understanding global environmental health issues including sustainable development and the demographic/epidemiological/environmental transitions; 2) methods for characterizing global environmental burdens of disease, including linkages with surveillance systems and information gaps among countries; and 3) the role of international institutions and organizations. Global environmental problems will be explored, including issues related to infrastructure and the built environment, goods movement, energy systems, climate change adaptation, and food production.
Skills:
- Assess global environmental threats, environmental contributions to global disease burden and the relation to the millennium development goals.
- Determine connections between major global economic/resource trends and environmental health risks.
- Assess the sustainable development framework and how it relates to planning effective interventions to reduce environmental burden of disease.
- Evaluate and recommend policy measures and interventions to address/reduce the environmental burden of disease, taking into account social and economic implications.
- Recommend assessment approaches in developing (resource limited) vs. developed countries
- Evaluate and recommend among the range of analytical tools for characterizing and addressing environmental issues in a given country/region.
Pre-reqs: The MPH environmental health core course requirement. Please contact the professor, Dr. Junenette Peters (petersj@bu.edu), if you have not met this pre-req. but are interested in taking this course. This course counts towards MPH IH credit.
Course Offered: Tuesdays 2-445PM, January 14-April 29
EH 780 Great Calamities and Their Consequences for Public Health (This course counts towards IH credit)
Content: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Santayana) How did our predecessors in public health successfully respond to the horrific cholera epidemics of the 19th century when the germ theory was not yet accepted? What lessons can we learn from this and other examples about how to deal with current public health problems, also in the face of unknowns? We discuss public health calamities of the past 200 years—including infectious disease epidemics, industrial disasters, pharmaceutical and food-related problems— that changed our ideas of public health as well as public health practice. We examine implications for both developed and developing countries. Students debate current public health issues as well as research and present to the class a public health disaster.
Skills:
- Identify major public health calamities of the past 200 years which have had significant impact on public health practice, including natural (e.g., cholera) and man-made (e.g., Chernobyl, Bhopal) calamities;
- Describe selected infectious disease epidemics of the past two centuries, with emphasis on contemporary responses to epidemics in terms of disease control, and with the current status of diseases such as influenza;
- Understand the evolution of the germ theory of disease;
- Describe the short and long term health effects of massive public exposure to physical or chemical hazards such as ionizing radiation, air pollution, persistent organic pollutants, methods used to identify long-term health effects, and the evolution and current status of exposure standards;
- Outline the evolution of the regulation of pharmaceutical drugs;
- Describe the public health ramifications of food contaminants such as methyl mercury and prions.
Pre-reqs: None. This course counts towards IH credit.
Course Offered: Mondays 2-4:45PM, January 13-May 5
EH800 Community Based-Methods in Environmental Health (This course counts towards SB credit)
Content: Low-income urban communities are exposed to many environmental and non-environmental stressors, and policy measures that do not reflect this complexity may not adequately address local health concerns. This course focuses on tools and techniques for assessing and addressing environmental health risks in these complex community settings, with an emphasis on health impact assessment, community-based participatory research, and analytical methods to evaluate environmental justice. Students will work on case studies with local community organizations or government agencies on a topic of mutual interest.
Skills:
· Describe the range of analytical tools available to characterize and address environmental problems at a community scale
· Use public databases to characterize patterns of community exposure to environmental stressors and the baseline health status of key subpopulations
· Evaluate the environmental justice implications of public policy measures
· Specify the pathways through which traffic and its related infrastructure can influence health
· Explain the contributors to residential environmental exposures, including outdoor sources, indoor sources, and structural factors; and design interventions to optimally improve the health of residents
· Design, conduct, and present a health impact assessment
Pre-reqs: The MPH core course requirements in Epidemiology and Environmental Health or consent of instructor. This course counts towards SB credit.
Course Offered: Spring 2014 Wednesdays, 2-4:45PM January 15-May 7
