GEOGRAPHY 480
Environmental
Geography, Climate, and Health
Spring, 2012
Tuesday and Thursday, 1:30-3:20
Smith 304
Dr.
Jonathan D. Mayer, Professor, Departments of Epidemiology, Geography, Medicine (Div
of Infectious Diseases). (Allergy and Infectious Disease), Family Medicine,
Global Health, and Health Services
Tel:
(206) 543-7110
Email: jmayer@u.washington.edu
Course listproc: geog480a_sp12@u.washington.edu
(remember that
anything posted here goes to the whole class)
Rooms
412-C Smith Hall and Health Sciences F-259 (Dept of Epidemiology)
Office
hours: By appointment
Course Rationale:
People,
societies, and the environment are inextricably linked in both obvious and more
obscure ways. At one time, some geographers argued that the physical and
biological environments determined
the characteristics of people and cultures. This “environmental determinism” is
a concept that has been discarded, and caused many to not consider
human-environment links for decades. It has become more and more obvious in the
past half century or so that individuals, societies, and the environments are
tied together in an intricate web of causation. The environment profoundly
influences people and cultures. In turn, people and groups modify the
environment through agriculture, water projects, urbanization, and other
phenomena. Thus, the consensus in the social sciences generally in geography
specifically, and in the public health sciences is that the human-environment
linkages are myriad, complex, and frequently hidden. At a time when there are
tremendous geographical inequalities in health status, life expectancy, and
patterns of mortality, the relations between the environment and health are of
paramount importance. It is from this realization that this course is offered.
Students
are expected to have some familiarity with epidemiologic study design
(case-control, prospective cohort, etc.) and other epidemiologic concepts,
and/or statistical analysis. We will discuss and review basic study design as
appropriate, but students must not be beginners. To put it another way,
students must be able to understand original research articles, many of which
are quantitative.
Course goal:
The
main goal of this course is to demonstrate and investigate the many ways of
appreciating how human-environment relations are expressed in the context of
health and disease. The focus will be both local and global. This course draws
attention to the relationships between geography generally and medical
geography specifically on the one hand, and environmental studies, social
analysis, and other biological, physical, and social sciences generally. Thus,
medical geography, or as I have called it lately, “epidemiologic geography,” is
at the intersection of the social. physical, public
health, and biological sciences. We must realize that individual health should
be seen in the context of public health, and that public health should be seen
in the broader contexts of social, physical, and biological phenomena, in their
complex and frequently hidden and unanticipated interactions. One of the ways
in which this will be done is by reading, understanding, and critiquing
original scientific research from major influential journals in environmental
health, infectious diseases, and other subdisciplines.
Put another way, not only will you gain knowledge, but you will learn how that
knowledge is generated by going to the sources where scientific knowledge is
shared and communicated: the scientific journals themselves. In the process,
you will learn that the kind of research through which this kind of knowledge
is generated is seldom perfect. We will see this in class by discussing and
finding the strengths and weaknesses of one article each week from the
published literature in the previous month or even the previous week. Even more
than that, you will learn to see that in the three assignments.
My educational beliefs:
Students
are inherently curious and seek to understand the world surrounding them and
the world in which they live. This course is structured to foster critical
analyses of human-health-environment relationships. This understanding and
analysis must come from a solid knowledge of the factual, scientific, and
conceptual bases from which such understanding and thinking must come. Some
students will find that this course will contribute directly to their
professional development, while others will find that it provides a basis for
understanding issues of health and disease as citizens in a democratic society,
in which we can all help to determine the course of society. My own role in
this course will be multifaceted. Sometimes I will serve as an authority on the
subjects that we will cover. At other times, I will be a facilitator of inquiry
and debate. I hope that I will always be a resource for your own interests and
investigations as we proceed through the course.
A word
on academic honesty and integrity is
in order. We will adhere strictly to
the rules of the University of Washington and the academic community in
prohibiting plagiarism, cheating, and academic dishonesty. These provisions are
spelled out in detail at the following website, with which all students are
expected to be familiar. Each year in this class, several cases of cheating and
plagiarism, unfortunately, are discovered. To prevent this, you must read the
contents of the following website
http://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/AcademicResponsibility.pdf
I will
assume that each and every student is familiar with the contents of this web
page, No excuses will be accepted for
academic dishonesty.
Grading:
Grades
will be based on three essays/response papers, to be spaced throughout the
quarter. These will require synthesis of readings and class materials, plus
some (but not a burdensome) amount of additional research in the scientific
literature. Each of these will be worth 30% of your grade. Participation,
ascertained by the submission of a 1 paragraph “thought piece” on your
reactions to the lecture material and reading for that week, will account for
the remaining 10%.
.
Paper
1 30%
Paper
2 30%
Paper
3 30%
Participation
10%--one paragraph “thought piece” on the week’s reading material, to be
submitted in class each Thursday
Reading:
P.
Martens and A. J. McMichael, Environmental
Change , Climate and Health: Issues and Research Methods. Available as an
e-book from Amazon with the free Kindle app for either PC or Mac.
Confalonieri,
U., B. Menne, R. Akhtar,
K.L. Ebi, M. Hauengue, R.S.
Kovats, B. Revich and A.
Woodward, 2007: Human health. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report
of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change,
M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof,
P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK, 391-431.
Available for free download at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter8.pdf
Download Ch. 8 only, pp.391-431.
Devra
Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water:
Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution.
New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Jonathan
Harr, A
Civil Action. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission. Managing the health effects of climate change. Lancet 2009;
373: 1693–733. Available for free download from UW e-journals.
Neil
Pearce, A Short Introduction to
Epidemiology, 2nd edition. Wellington: Centre for Public Health
Research, 2005. Available for free download at:
www.massey.ac.nz/~wwwcphr/publications/introepi.pdf
` On
electronic reserve for this course
V.J. Schoenbach, Fundamentals of Epidemiology: An Evolving Text.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Department of Epidemiology, 2000.
Available for free download at:
http://www.epidemiolog.net/evolving/TableOfContents.htm
.
Concepts of Health and
Disease; Health in an Ecological Perspective
Basic Concepts (March 27, 29)
Reading:
Martens
and McMichael, ch.1, 2, 3, 11. Optional: M and M, ch.
4
Schoenbach, ch. 1, 2, 4;
Pearce ch.
1
Epidemiology, Epidemiologic Geography, and Global
Environmental Health (April 3)
Jonathan Mayer, “Medical
Geography” in Companion to Health and Medical Geography. E-reserve
and emailed to class.
Review of specific infectious diseases and their environmental
components; Emerging Infectious Diseases (April 5, 7)
Reading:
Martens and Michael, ch. 11-12
Jonathan Mayer, “Geography,
Ecology, and Emerging Diseases.” E-reserve and emailed to
class.
Jonathan
Mayer, “Emerging Infectious Diseases”
E-reserve and emailed to class.
Study Design; Research Articles in Environment and
Health
Study Design and Causal Paths
(April 12).
Reading
Martens and McMichael, ch.
5-6.
Optional: ch. 9
Pearce,
ch. 2, 3, 6. See
also ch. 9, 10, 11.
Schoenbach, ch.
8.
How to read a research
article: (April 17).
Article to be announced on
Tues. April 10th. Will be on electronic reserve, and also posted to the class
list. This will be from a research journal published since the beginning of
class.
Assignment 1 due Tuesday, April
24. Click here for the
assignment.
Global Climate, Climate Change, and Health
Science
of Climate Change (April 19, 24th)
Lancet article on climate change
(above).
Confalioneri et al. above (IPCC report)
Martens and McMichael, ch. 10,
2, 7, 8
Health Effects 1 (April 26)
Direct Effects of Global Warming
El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
and infectious diseases
Health Effects 2 (May 1)
Global Climate Change and Infectious
Diseases
Health Effects 3 (May 3rd)
The Ozone Layer and Carcinogenesis
Assignment
2 due Tuesday May 15th. Click here for the
assignment.
Nature and Epidemiology of Cancer (May 8th)
Pollution and Cancer (May 10, 15)
Pollution, Environment and Asthma/Respiratory Diseases;
Hygiene hypothesis (May 17)
Reading: Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water.
Moving to the Local: Cancer Clusters and Civil
Action (May 22th, May 24th, May 31st)
Harr, Civil
Action.
Additional readings to be announced
Assignment 3 due first day of final exam week, Monday, June 4. Click here for
the assignment.
PubMED. The interface with the National Library of Medicine, which contains
most of the relevant articles in medicine, public health, and medical
geography.
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). An essential short digest of vital
health information and outbreak investigations in the US.
Emerging Infectious Diseases. A top-notch publication by CDC. You may subscribe to either
the online or hard copy editions for free.
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
*IPCC 4th
Assessment--Impacts Chapter 8 is the health section
National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Center for Health Statistics
Global Fund to Stop AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria
UW electronic journal
collection
PubMED. (Interface with National Library of
Medicine—all major public health, medical, and relevant geography
articles are included here) Make sure that you sign in on the top right if you
will need links to the actual articles in e-journals.
Health and Medical
Geography Specialty Group
Toxic Release Inventory Program—geographically
referenced dataset of toxic releases in the US
National
Cancer Institute cancer clusters homepage
CDC National Environmental Health
Tracking Program
National Cancer Institute Maps and
Graphs
Environmental Health Perspectives—foremost
journal in environmental health