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2020/2021

Environmental Epidemiology and Risk Management

Code: 102825 ECTS Credits: 9
Degree Type Year Semester
2501915 Environmental Sciences OB 3 2
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Ferran Torres
Email:
Ferran.Torres@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Ferran Torres
David Molina Gallart

Prerequisites

No prerequisites

Objectives and Contextualisation

  INTRODUCTION

The subject is structured in two complementary parts. The first one studies how the environmental environment can affect the health of people and the approach will be carried out from the epidemiological perspective. In the second part, the integral management of the environmental risks of catastrophic and immediate impacts such as those of a natural or technological nature is posed.

   OBJECTIVES

Know the main environmental risk factors for health.

Provide tools for the understanding and discussion the epidemiological studies.

Know the main scientific perspectives on environmental risks as well as contrast scientific and social visions from the critical analysis.

Introduce students to risk management.

Know about selected examples of specific types of risks.

 

 

Competences

  • Adequately convey information verbally, written and graphic, including the use of new communication and information technologies.
  • Analyze and use information critically.
  • Collect, analyze and represent data and observations, both qualitative and quantitative, using secure adequate classroom, field and laboratory techniques
  • Demonstrate adequate knowledge and use the most relevant environmental tools and concepts of biology, geology, chemistry, physics and chemical engineering.
  • Demonstrate adequate knowledge and use the tools and concepts of the most relevant social science environment.
  • Demonstrate concern for quality and praxis.
  • Demonstrate initiative and adapt to new situations and problems.
  • Develop communication strategies on environmental issues, including environmental risks
  • Information from texts written in foreign languages.
  • Integrate environmental information in order to formulate and test hypotheses.
  • Integrate physical, technological and social aspects that characterize environmental problems.
  • Learn and apply in practice the knowledge acquired and to solve problems.
  • Quickly apply the knowledge and skills in the various fields involved in environmental issues, providing innovative proposals.
  • Teaming developing personal values regarding social skills and teamwork.
  • Work autonomously

Learning Outcomes

  1. Adequately convey information verbally, written and graphic, including the use of new communication and information technologies.
  2. Analyze and use information critically.
  3. Communicate environmental problems with proper attention to the problems of environmental risk and the relevant regulations in the fields of safety and environmental health.
  4. Demonstrate concern for quality and praxis.
  5. Demonstrate initiative and adapt to new situations and problems.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of some of the main areas of scientific disciplines environment.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of some of the main areas of the social sciences in the environment.
  8. Identify processes sciences, life sciences and social sciences in the surrounding environment and evaluate them properly and originally.
  9. Information from texts written in foreign languages.
  10. Integrate environmental information with environmental knowledge acquired from the sequence of observation, recognition, synthesis and modeling.
  11. Learn and apply in practice the knowledge acquired and to solve problems.
  12. Learn and apply the most important epidemiological analysis of environmental risks and the overall risk analysis methodologies.
  13. Observe, recognize, analyze, measure and properly and safely represent environmental processes.
  14. Teaming developing personal values regarding social skills and teamwork.
  15. Work autonomously

Content

    1. Presentation of the subject. Health in the management of environmental risk. Introduction to environmental epidemiology, concepts of public health.
    2. Principle of precaution and risk assessment for health. Evaluation of carcinogens in humans by IARC.
    3. Measure of disease effect. Incidence, prevalence, rates and attributable risk. Sources of information
    4. Measure of exposure. General concepts and measures in the environment. Questionnaires and biomarkers.
    5. Types of epidemiological studies for the description and evaluation of causal associations between exposure and disease.
    6. Case studies and controls.
    7. Cohort studies. Relative risk
    8. Bias, factors of confusion and stratification. Causal criteria.
    9. Exposure to organochlorine compounds.
    10.  Water pollution
    11. Atmospheric pollution. Main pollutants and acute and chronic effects.
    12.  Electromagnetic fields: ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and its effects on health.
    13. Climate change and health.
    14. Introduction to the integral management of environmental risk: definition, classifications and measures.
    15. Environmental risk and impacts in the current world.
    16. The perception of risk
    17. The communication of risk
    18. Risk, vulnerability and distributive justice.
    19. Flooding Case study of the Rubí stream.
    20. Extreme weather phenomena.
    21. Drought
    22. Earthquakes
    23. Technological risks. Industrial risk

Methodology

Theoretical in classroom, practices in pc lab and field work.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Field trip 15 0.6 3, 10
Practices 20 0.8 2, 11, 12, 3, 5, 4, 10, 13, 9, 1, 15, 14
Theoretical 45 1.8 2, 11, 12, 3, 4, 10, 13
Type: Autonomous      
Practices and informs redaction 75 3 2, 11, 12, 3, 5, 4, 10, 13, 9, 1, 15, 14
Study 70 2.8 2, 11, 12, 5, 4, 10, 9, 15

Assessment

1. There are two partial exams, one for each part of the subject. It is necessary to obtain more than 3 (out of 10) of each partial exam to be able to do an average with the practices and with the other part of the subject.

2. If the global mark of each part does not exceed 5, a final recovery exam must be carried out.

3. Practices must be carried out and approved to be able to make a mean.

5. The block of environmental epidemiology is worth 50% of the final note as well as the environmental risk.

To ask for a reevaluation the student must have been received a mark in activities that represent at least 2/3 of the global mark during the course.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Exam 60% (Epidemiology) 60% (Risc) 0 0 2, 11, 12, 6, 7, 8, 13, 1
Practices and field trip 40% (Epidemiology) 40% (Risk) 0 0 2, 11, 12, 3, 6, 7, 5, 4, 8, 10, 13, 9, 1, 15, 14

Bibliography

Bigliography

  •  Baker D. i Nieuwenhuijsen MJ. Environmental Epidemiology. Study methods and application. Oxford University Press (disponible a la biblioteca de ciències)
  • Nieuwenhuijsen MJ. Exposure assessment in occupational and environmental epidemiology. Oxford University Press. (disponible a la biblioteca de ciències)
  • Martínez-Navarro F., Antó  JM, Castellanos PL, Gili M, Marset P, Navarro V., ed. Salud Pública. Madrid: Mcgraw-Hill- Interamericana de España S.A.U. 1998 ; cap. 15: 261-71. (disponible a la biblioteca de Ciències)
  • Antó JM, Sunyer J. La epidemiología ambiental. En:  Martínez-Navarro F., Antó  JM, Castellanos PL, Gili M, Marset P, Navarro V., ed. Salud Pública. Madrid: Mcgraw-Hill- Interamericana de España S.A.U. 1998 ; cap. 15: 261-71. (disponible a la biblioteca de Ciències)
  • Ayala Carcedo,F.J. y Olcina Cantos, J. (eds) (2002): Riesgos Naturales. Barcelona: Ariel
  • Calvo García-Tornel, F. (2001): Sociedades y Territorios en Riesgo. Barcelona, Ediciones del Serbal.
  • Llasat. M.C. i Corominas, J. (2010): Riscos associats al clima, a J.E. Llebot (ed): Segon Informe sobre el Canvi Climàtic a Catalunya. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans i Consell Assessor per al Desenvolupament Sostenible de la Generalitat de Catalunya. http://www15.gencat.cat/cads/AppPHP/images/stories/publicacions/informesespecials/2010/sicccat/informe_per_captols/07_riscos_associats_al_clima.pdf
  • Smith, K. i D. Petley (2009): Environmental Hazards. Assessing risk and reducing disaster. Londres, Routledge (5ena edició).
  • Vilaplana, J.M. (2008) RISKCAT. Els riscos naturals a Catalunya. Barcelona: Consell Assessor pel Desenvolupament Sostenible http://www15.gencat.net/cads/AppPHP/images/stories/publicacions/informesespecials/2008/els_riscos_naturals_a_catalunya.pdf
  •  Kieffer, Susan W. 2013: The Dynamics of Disaster. New York: Norton.

 

web links

WHO - OMS Organització Mundial de la Salut

http://www.who.int/es

Agència Europea del Medi Ambient

http://www.eea.eu.int

Programa de les Nacions Unides pel Medi Ambient

http://www.unep.org/

US Environmental Protection Agency

http://www.epa.gov

International Society for Environmental Epidemiology

http://www.iseepi.org/

WFP_ Programa Mundial d’Aliments

http://www.wfp.org/

European Centre for Environment and Health

http://www.euro.who.int/ecehrome

Publicacions de la UE. Sovint hi ha publicacions disponibles en pdf sobre salut i medi ambient

http://bookshop.europa.eu/

Agència internacional d’avaluació del càncer

http://www.iarc.fr

Natural Hazards Center

http://www.colorado.edu/hazards

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

http://www.cred.be/

Estratègia Internacional per a la Reducció de Desastres

http://www.unisdr.org

Protecció Civil Espanya

http://www.proteccioncivil.org

Direcció General de Protecció Civil (Catalunya)

http://www20.gencat.cat/portal/site/interior/

Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros

http://www.consorseguros.es