Search: Public Health, Environmental Legislation and Policy

The course introduces students to technical, legal, administrative, and political elements that contribute to environmental health policy in the U.S. and how their interplay shapes policy decisions. The course covers major approaches to making policy decisions for environmental contaminants; technical methods used in policy analysis including risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and technology-related review; the role of legislative and administrative institutions; and the role of interests and political actors in policy debates, particularly those with technical components. The course will also examine emerging approaches to assessment of environmental and health problems including use of precautionary principles and environmental justice, comparing these to the currently predominant environmental management paradigm.

This course introduces the basic scientific components of environmental and occupational health risk assessment and describes the policy context in which decisions to manage environmental health risks are made. The course presents the quantitative methods used to assess the human health risks associated with exposure to toxic chemicals, focusing on the four major components of risk assessment: hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. Students use these tools to develop their own risk assessment for an environmental health problem. The course also provides a broad overview of occupational and environmental health regulations with consideration of how hazard, risk, cost, and benefits are considered. Current political controversies about environmental policy will be examined.