Environmental Health PHLT 1210

Course description:

This course is designed to provide a foundation for understanding how the environment influences human health, covering water, food, energy, solid waste, liquid waste, injury, radiation, pest control, air pollution and monitoring. Lectures and book chapters are coordinated and provide sufficient background so the topic is accessible to all student majors.  Each lecture covers a different topic and begins with a presentation of the scientific background required for understanding the health problems associated with the topic and the strategies used to prevent those problems. Lectures provide an opportunity for students to ask questions, class discussions and present material not in the book.

Course Aims:

By the end of the course students will be able to:
  • Understand the co-evolution of human civilization, environmental exposures, and disease.
  • Be conversant about the Palestinian system of environmental laws. 
  • Describe environmental hazards in communities and the workplace.
  • Describe surveillance procedures for hazards in communities and the workplace.
  • Understand the basis of susceptibility to environmental disease. 
  • Understand how a risk assessment document is prepared, the information it contains, and how it is used to manage risk and monitoring  to environmental hazards.

Course outcomes:

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  • Describe the major environmental problems caused by solid and hazardous waste, water pollution, air pollution and agriculture.
  • Understand the challenges of producing sufficient food for an expanding population under changing climate conditions while maintaining the quality of the environment. 
  • Understand environmental policy from the perspective of different countries. 
  • Understand basic principles that underlie climate change and its impact on human and ecological health.
  • Describe the major mechanisms of toxicity of water, air and soil.