HSO-20306 Environmental Assets for Health

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

Dutch

Assumed knowledge on:

It is assumed that all students that follow this course have knowledge of Introduction to Health and Society (HSO-10806) and/or Global Health (HSO-10306). For students from another educational background, additional readings are available.

Continuation courses:

HSO-30306 Health Policy and Action; HSO-30806 Settings for Health Promotion

Contents:

This course starts from the basic principles of Health Promotion and elaborates on different perspectives that underlie research in health and society. The perspectives addressed include Health Promotion Principles, Salutogenesis, Ecological Health approach and Life Course perspective. The perspective that you take as a starting point affects the issues you identify, the way you set up research and the solutions that you find. In this course we will look at environmental determinants of health in different levels of the built environment. We will discuss home-, neighbourhood-, city- and regional environments and the role they play regarding people' s health. Students will conduct their own local-level research to assess how social and physical determinants affect health in a neighbourhood environment. The central questions in this course are: what environmental determinants for health are present at different environmental levels, how do these determinants influence health, and what are possibilities from the perspective of a health promotor to take health into account when designing an environment.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of this course students are expected to:
- be able to distinguish different perspectives on promoting health and describe how the use of a certain perspective influences the formulation and research of and solutions to health issues;
- be able to apply different perspectives on promoting health in the analysis of issues around environmental risks and assets for health;
- have knowledge of physical and social determinants of health and can describe how these determinants affect human health;
- be able to analyse, using audit tools, which social and physical determinants play a role in local level environments and be able to reason how (the interaction between) these determinants (can) affect human health;
- be able to apply the above in a scientifically founded advise for the design of a 'healthy' environment

Activities:

- lectures;
- tutorials;
- individual paper;
- group assignments
- practical and excursion.

Examination:

The course is assessed by a written examination with open and multiple choice questions, based on all literature and lectures. There are two assignments for which a grade is obtained. In the tutorials small assignments have to be made during class, for which students have to receive a 'pass'.
The weighting of grades is as follows:
Individual assignment: 15%;
Group assignment: 35%;
Written exam: 50%;
Tutorial assignments: pass/fail.

Literature:

A reader with scientific literature will be made available through Blackboard and/or in the WUR-shop