Climate change is an urgent and multifaceted challenge facing all of society.
Harvard faculty teach an expanding array of courses examining the many dimensions of this shared challenge. Explore courses in climate and sustainability ranging from economics and English to public health and climate science.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE SALATA INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY
The connection between diet and patient health is unequivocal, yet nutrition-based interventions in medical practice remain significantly underutilized. The aim of this course is for you to understand the health and economic consequences of the lack of nutrition education and practice in medicine, and to demonstrate the unique potential for physicians and other health care professionals to serve as change agents for effectively integrating nutrition into medical care.
For over a century, public health has provided a solid scientific framework to assess the causes and consequences of harmful policies and behaviors endangering the health of populations. Yet, in an increasingly divided world, public health professionals have been confronted with the growing politicization of health policy debates, including ongoing attempts to question or limit the influence of science in government policy making. These challenges have been particularly visible in crisis situations such as the response to the COVID-19 pandemic or the latest hurricanes affecting large numbers of people and communities.
This course was developed because the practice of medicine and public health in this century will require an understanding of the relationship between human health and the global environment.
Through an experiential learning approach, the course will present systematic tools and methods to engage in complex negotiations in a proactive, critical, and practical manner. Based on several years of empirical research on negotiation practices on the frontlines of conflict, health crises and natural disasters, it will equip students with the practical competences and interpersonal skills required to navigate crisis negotiation as well as facilitate learning through the experience of seasoned practitioners working in these environments.
Public health students have few academic opportunities to engage with the profound themes of grief, loss, and death, even in an era of pandemics, climate change, and widening health disparities.
This course will examine the relationship between Climate Change Preparedness, UN SDGs, community problems, and current sustainable and social solutions to serve as a starting point for developing new solutions that might serve as the business or social cases to conceive and fund startups in health, sustainability or social ventures.
This course will provide formal definition, as well as quantitative and qualitative measurement tools utilized in this emerging area of study that intersects environmental health with implementation, effectiveness, and dissemination science. Some of the key concepts that will be discussed in this course are risk communication, health literacy, and numeracy. Furthermore, students will learn the principles for how to communicate environmental health science in a way that is equitable, rigorous, and accessible for the public based on principles of EHL.
The nutritional health of the public begins with food. There are two goals of this course: (1) To learn the basics of food science and technology, including food composition, chemistry, processing, and engineering; and (2) to understand how the broader food environment, including agricultural practices, food policy, and food trade, affects food availability and consumption. Through lectures, discussions, and group projects, students will be challenged to think critically about how the food supply impacts public health.
This course will explore the long history of theorizing about the impact of the environment on health, paying particular attention to changing climates: what happens when people travel to new climates, and what happens when a place’s climate changes.
This introductory course examines the social, political, and environmental determinants of health and health equity. It analyzes how history, institutional dynamics, and policy decisions contribute to existing health inequities across local, national, and global contexts.
This course will examine methodological issues associated with the design and execution of studies designed to measure environmental exposure to chemical and biological contaminants.
From childhood lead exposure, to the pathways and practices of our ancestors millions of years ago, teeth retain incredible records of our collective pasts. This course examines teeth from two main perspectives. The first is medical and dental, examining the developmental biology and mineralogy of how teeth form, and how formation can fail in the context of health crises. The second is historical: the class will learn how teeth are records of past history and climate, even into deep time, millions of years into the past. Every week, we will read contemporary scientific literature on teeth from multiple perspectives. In the second half of the course, students will work collectively on a research project.
