SFOK16011U Children and Environmental Health

Volume 2018/2019
Education

MSc in Public Health Science - elective course

MSc in Health Informatics - elective course

MSc in Global Health - elective course

MSc in Human Biology - elective course

MSc in Health Science - elective course

Content

The course will be based on the textbook of children's environmental health edited by Philip Landrigan and Ruth A Etzel from Oxford University press with introduction to pediatrics, exposure science, environments, environmental hazards, prevention and control of diseases and legal and ethical aspects.

The course describes exposure, toxicology and epidemiology of exposures to children from outdoor and indoor emission sources. Assessment of hazards from exposure to air pollution, food, consumer products

Exposures is for a large part based on review of available data on exposure, toxicology and epidemiology by international expert committees. It describes an integrated approach to hazard identification of environmental exposures, using information on exposure assessment, toxicology and epidemiology. The curriculum encompasses individual risk evaluations including human biomonitoring studies.

Children and cognitive and behavioral adverse effects from prenatal and early childhood environments will be presented by clinical experts

Learning Outcome

After completing the course the student is expected to:

Knowledge

  • Understading most common diseases in children, how to prevent, diagnose and treat including paediatrics
  • Understanding problems of exposure assessment for components in air pollution, food and consumer products specifucally related to children, taking different age groups into account
  • Understanding children health epidemiology applying the Bradford Hill criteria
  • Understanding integrated hazard identification procedure
  • Understand the special ethical and legal demands related to studies with children
     

Skills

  • Critical insight into prevention, diagnosing and  treatment by paediatric expertise
  • Participate in development and validation of exposure assessment of children
  • Analyse exposure-response relationships
  • Apply methods for exposure assessment for air pollution exposures, food borne exposures and exposures from cinsumer products, including human biomonitoring
  • Perform risk assessment and risk communication of adverse effects from the envornment og childrens health
     

Competences

  • Critical insight into prevention, diagnosing and  treatment by paediatric expertise
  • Extract and discuss strength and weaknesses of relevant toxicological and epidemiological literature
  • Discuss exposure and outcome assessment with relevant specialists
  • Critically evaluate and interpret toxicological and epidemiological studies, design and data
  • Discuss and apply the results on toxicological and epidemiological studies in hazard identification of childrens environmental exposures
  • Apply the special ethical and legal demands related to studies with children in a study protocol

    The students should specifically be able to:
  • define the most common paeditric challenges related to environment
  • define the specific vulnerability of children to environmental exposues
  • name the major exposure routes and sources
  • describe the major diseases of environmental origin in children
  • describe risk assessment and risk management
  • analyse the major ethical and legal issues related to studies with children

The course will be based on the textbook of children's environmental health edited by Philip Landrigan and Ruth A Etzel from Oxford University press and monographs/scientific papers to be discussed in the class by presentations of the students.

Knowledge on BSc level within the following areas: environmental and occupational health, basic epidemiology and international health.
Class room discussions from the text in the textbook and the original literature provided. The course aims at engaging the students by student presentations of selected issues.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 50
  • Course Preparation
  • 180
  • Exam
  • 45
  • Total
  • 275
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
The students will be asked for a self selected assignment with a topic within Childrens Environmental Health.
Individual written assignment to be worked on throughout the course and handed in on the last day of the course.
Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
One internal examiner.
Exam period

Please see the exam schedule at KUnet 

Re-exam

Please see the exam schedule at KUnet 

The exam form in the re-examination may differ from the ordinary exam. Should this happen, students registered for the re-examination will be informed as soon as possible.

Criteria for exam assesment

To achieve the maximum grade of 12, the student must be able to:

Knowledge

  • Understand problems of exposure assessment for components in air pollution, food and consumer products specifucally related to children, taking different age groups into account
  • Understand children health epidemiology applying the Bradford Hill criteria
  • Understand integrated hazard identification procedure
  • Understand the special ethical and legal demands related to studies with children
     

Skills

  • Demonstrate independent skills in assessing inportant environmental health problems for children, the prevention , regulation and ethical and legal aspects.
     

Competences

  • Define the most common paeditric challenges related to environment
  • Define the specific vulnerability of children to environmental exposues
  • Name the major exposure routes and sources
  • Describe the major diseases of environmental origin in children
  • Describe risk assessment and risk management
  • Analyse the major ethical and legal issues related to studies with children