Environmental Health (POPH90309)

This subject explores the complex relationship between the environment and the social, emotional, and physical health of people and how these can be matched by effective policy and action. This subject aims to improve our understanding and interpretation of the environmental risks to health and wellbeing, and to develop skills in health impact assessment, policy agenda setting, action, and evaluation in environmental health. Students will explore a range of environmental risks to food systems and food safety; water, air, and soil quality; the impact of green spaces and the natural ‘place’ to health and wellbeing, and the human biological threats of external agents such as radiation, pollution, noise, climate change, disasters, and animals/insect vectors. This subject will introduce students to the environmental determinants of health and wellbeing, and the frameworks that guide environmental health strategy and policy, including widely used and innovative decision-support tools. Students will analyse the management of environmental health risks that include prevention and protection using an equity and ‘systems’ lens. In doing so, key national and international regulatory and legislative structures and directives, and innovative programs related to environmental health protection and the promotion of wellbeing will be explored across multiple settings. Concepts in environmental health will be introduced and students will explore and utilise a range of tools to enable human risk assessment, such as those used in the field of toxicology, epidemiology, and the social science. This subject is aimed at students, who, as current or future decision makers would like to lead and implement change through advocacy, development, implementation, management and evaluation of public health environmental health strategies and policies.