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The Health Implications of Climate Change and Society's Response
Submitted by admin on May 13, 2008 - 9:13am.Department:
Public Health
Course Number:
PH 298.38
Course Title:
The Health Implications of Climate Change and Society's Response
Instructor:
Kirk Smith, Justin Remais
Description:
SPRING 2008
Environmental Health Sciences Division
The Health Implications of Climate Change and Society's Response
Fridays 2-4pm - 332 Giannini
PH 298.38 - CC#76642 (2 units P/NP)
"Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to public health, and changes the way we must look at protecting vulnerable populations." - WHO, 2007.
How and why is the global climate changing?
What are the health implications of these changes and society's responses to them?
What roles do health scientists have in addressing the risks created by climate change?
This course will begin by providing a basic foundation in the physical and societal basis of climate change, including atmospheric structure and feedbacks, carbon cycling, and the sources and trends of human and natural greenhouse pollutant emissions. Forecasts of future climate, and their uncertainties, will be discussed, emphasizing parameters of potential relevance to human health. We will explore epidemiologic, risk assessment, and statistical methods appropriate for understanding the impact of climate on health in different populations, including reviews of current burden of disease estimates of avoidable and attributable risk. The public health implications, positive and negative, of society's efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change will be elaborated, including discussions of ethical, political and economic aspects. Each student's performance will be evaluated based on a term paper and participation in student-led sessions on selected aspects of the subject matter.
The material will be presented with minimal expectation of a background in physical science, although some additional reading may be needed for students with no university science courses.
Prerequisite: PH150A, PH250A/B or other introductory course in epidemiology. Grading will be pass/not pass, although individual requests for a grading option will be considered.
Instructors:
Justin Remais, Research Scientist, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health Kirk R. Smith, Professor of Global Environmental Health Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health
For more information, contact Justin Remais <mailto:jvr@berkeley.edu><jvr@berkeley.edu> or Kirk R. Smith <mailto:krksmith@berkeley.edu><krksmith@berkeley.edu> in the Environmental Health Sciences Division.
Units:
2
Offered:
Spring
Course Type:
Graduate
Balmes, John R.
Submitted by admin on June 21, 2007 - 12:32pm.Name of Person:
Balmes, John R.
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Professor
Research Interests:
Dr. Balmes' laboratory, the Human Exposure Laboratory (HEL), has been studying the respiratory health effects of various air pollutants for the past 15 years. Recently, the HEL has been focusing on the airway inflammatory effects of ozone and fine particles.
Nicas, Mark
Submitted by admin on June 22, 2007 - 11:07am.Name of Person:
Nicas, Mark
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Adjunct Professor
Research Interests:
Dr. Nicas has two primary research interests. First, he develops mathematical models to estimate exposure intensity to airborne chemical toxicants. Such models consider the pollutant emission rate and the dispersion pattern in air. Dr. Nicas uses two approaches - a traditional method based on deterministic differential equations and a probabilistic method involving Markov chain techniques. Second, he develops probability models for infection by airborne pathogens (e.g., M. tuberculosis, Y. pestis, C. immitis), with an immediate application to the risk-based selection of personal respiratory protection.
Zhang, Luoping
Submitted by admin on June 25, 2007 - 11:40am.Name of Person:
Zhang, Luoping
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Associate Adjunct Professor
Research Interests:
Dr. Zhang has been working toward applying FISH to understand the mechanisms of bone marrow toxicity caused by benzene and as a biomarker for childhood leukeumia and other types of cancer. Recently, her research interest has turned to toxicogenomics, leading research efforts to apply gene expression profiling in molecular epidemiology and RNAi in human cell culture studies of chemical exposure.
Smith, Martyn T.
Submitted by admin on June 25, 2007 - 11:36am.Name of Person:
Smith, Martyn T.
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Professor
Research Interests:
Research in Dr. M.T. Smith's laboratory is focused on the development of biomarkers for susceptibility and early effect and their application to the study of human populations exposed to various chemicals. Recent studies involve the application of biomarkers among people exposed to arsenic, benzene, butadiene and malathion.
Smith, Kirk R.
Submitted by admin on June 25, 2007 - 11:32am.Name of Person:
Smith, Kirk R.
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Department:
Public Health, Professor
Research Interests:
His research work focuses on environmental and health issues in developing countries, particularly those related to health-damaging and climate-changing air pollution, and includes ongoing field projects in India, China, Nepal, Mexico, and Guatemala.
Achievements:
He was elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors awarded to US scientists by their peers.
McKone, Thomas E.
Submitted by admin on June 22, 2007 - 11:03am.Name of Person:
McKone, Thomas E.
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Department:
Public Health, Adjunct Professor
Research Interests:
Dr. McKone's research interests include the use of multimedia compartment models in health-risk assessments; chemical transport and transformation in the environment; and measuring and modeling the biophysics of contaminant transport from the environment into the microenvironments with which humans have contact and across the human/environment exchange boundaries--skin, lungs, and gut.
Jerret, Michael
Submitted by admin on June 22, 2007 - 10:33am.Name of Person:
Jerret. Michael
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Department:
Public Health, Associate Professor
Research Interests:
Spatial analysis of disease-exposure associations using Geographic Information Science; geographic exposure modeling, land use characterization.
Jackson, Richard
Submitted by admin on June 21, 2007 - 12:57pm.Name of Person:
Jackson, Richard
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Adjunct Professor
Research Interests:
Health policy as it is shaped by housing, transportation, agricultural, environmental, economic policy. Specific effects of toxic chemicals on health, especially that of children. Biomonitoring of chemical body burdens and health. Pesticides and human health.
Hammond, Katherine S.
Submitted by admin on June 21, 2007 - 12:22pm.Name of Person:
Hammond, Katherine S.
Picture:
Department:
Public Health, Professor
Research Interests:
Dr. Hammond's early work focused on the pulmonary effects of exposures to silicon carbide in manufacturing, the carcinogenic potential of diesel exhaust exposures in railroad workers, the effects of exposure to solvents among boat builders, and the effect of exposure to machining fluids in the automobile industry. One of her continuing interests has been that of quantifying exposures to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS).