Introduction to the course and overview

In this lecture presentation …

• A brief overview of the course
• Assessments and modules
• Due dates
• Basics of Environmental and Occupational Health
• Your questions and answers

What will you learn

• Concepts of environmental health
• Concepts of epidemiology
• Toxicology
• Environmental Health risk assessment
• Occupational health and hazards
• Specific issues: air pollution, water sanitation hygiene, and others

Logistics: when and where

• Classes are held at Rehua 101
• Tuesdays, 11 AM - 1 PM
• Lectures are also in Zoom
• Zoom recordings are made available after class

Order of the topics

• First half of the course: theory
• Second half of the course: applications
• This class is discursive and hands-on
• Theoretical topics are on video
• Practical hands-on and discussions in class

Tutorial and textbook

• No tutorial classes
• Use tutorial time for self-organised learning
• No textbook
• Instead of textbook, journal articles and book chapters in PDF
• Read the materials and be prepared to discuss them

Assessments

• Two assessments in the course:
• a memo (50% wt, 50 marks) and
• annotated bibliography (50% wt, 50 marks)

Memo

• Write a memo on Environmental or Occupational health issue
• Address it to your local councillor
• Write the envirommental and related health issue
• Word limit: 2000 words, excludes words in images, tables, title, etc
• Submit by 21st August, 5 PM

Annotated bibliography

• Select Environmental Health Problem
• Search scholarly databases
• Cite each article using APA 7th version
• Next to each article, write a short summary and note about it
• word limit 2000 words
• Word count excludes words in title/abstract/ titles of papers/tables/images

Getting help

• Try Forum first
• Post your question to the forum
• Add a new discussion topic

How to get notifications in Forum

Key concepts in this course

• Environment is about human-engendered and external
• Hazard is potential of harm and qualitative
• Risk is realised health effect
• Exposure is external, dose is at the target organ
• Occupational Health is a special case of Environmental Health

Main topics

• Environmental Epidemiology
• Toxicology
• Environmental Health Risk Assessment
• Occupational Health
• Topics related to Environmental and Occupational Health

Environmental Epidemiology

• Distribution and determinants of health states
• Measures of distribution and determinants
• Internal and external validity
• Causal inference in Environmental Health
• Environmental epidemiological study designs

Toxicology

• Dose is the poison is an important concept
• What the toxin does to the body (toxicokinetics)
• What the body does to the toxin (toxicodynamics)
• Threshold of effect
• Dose-response gradients

Dose is the poison

Environmental Health risk assessment

Specific Health issues

• Air pollution
• Water, sanitation, hygiene
• Occupational hazards
• Sustainable living
• Climate change

Conclusion: how to ace this course

• Complete the assigned readings on time
• Complete the assessments on time
• We use "flipped grading", so submit on time
• Everyone passes this course, so
• Focus on studying and gaining knowledge

Enjoy the course!