Health: Pathways to Planetary Health

Advanced courses on health topics beyond the scope of department or college offerings. See Schedule of Courses for specific titles.

Colocated with SEP 3990 B Special Topics courses cannot carry CC designations. Open to Degree and PACE students

At its most basic level, Planetary Health is a term that recognizes that we must protect nature if we want to protect life on earth, including our own health and well-being. Planetary Health is also a solutions-oriented, transdisciplinary field that works to identify the root causes of planetary harm, and effectively design and implement strategies to address human behaviors, policies, and systems in order to ensure a flourishing future for people and planet. In many ways, human well-being is at an all-time high as evidenced by global average life expectancy, literacy rates, infant and maternal survival, and many other metrics. But these gains for humanity have come at the cost of the rest of the biosphere; many extractive human activities that have benefited our species over the past centuries are destabilizing the Earth’s natural systems, and these environmental changes are expected to be a major driver in the burden of disease in the future. In this course, we examine how rapid human population growth coupled with ever-increasing per capita consumption are driving an extraordinary transformation of the Earth’s climate system, oceans, land cover, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity, and coastal and fresh water systems. We explore how these same biophysical systems are the foundation of human health and well-being, and how their disruption affects global food production, emerging infectious diseases, human exposures to natural hazards, and the habitability of the places where we live. We investigate case studies from around the world that show the connections between natural resource consumption, environmental change, and human health, and we analyze the many solutions—from local to global—that communities are implementing around the world to respond and adapt to environmental challenges. We integrate knowledge from natural, social, and health sciences in the context of the humanities to identify opportunities for effectively responding to global environmental change, and seek pathways that can lead to better outcomes for both people and the planet. LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to: 1. Understand the concept of planetary health as it relates to the interconnections between human health and the environment on local and global scales. 2. Explain how humanity’s interactions with Earth’s natural systems are a primary determinant of human health on a global scale, now and in the future. 3. Identify key human health outcomes and indicators related to planetary health. 4. Identify actions, policies, and management strategies that optimize human health while maintaining the health of natural systems.

This course utilizes brief lectures and a "flipped classroom" design that requires students to complete readings and assignments in Brightspace before class in order to come prepared for classroom work and discussion. Required materials for this course are: 1) TEXTBOOK: Meyers & Frumkin. 2020. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves. Island Press. ISBN: 9781610919661 Available through the publisher ($39.00) https://islandpress.org/books/planetary-health and 2) Planetary Health Case Studies: An Anthology of Solutions (available as a PDF download in Brightspace).

There are six primary criteria for student evaluation in this course: 1) Attendance 2) Weekly Engagement & Participation in Discussion 3) Weekly Entrance Tickets 4) Midterm Learning Assessment 5) Final Learning Assessment 6) Planetary Health Case Study