Course Name:

Climate and Health

Course Dates: October 20th to November 17th, 2019

Course Ad: St. George’s University (SGU) is pleased to once again present as part of its One
Health One Medicine Open Access course series, a course entitled: Climate and Health. This
course on Climate and Health is being offered by the Department of Public Health and
Preventive Medicine as it celebrates 20 years of public health education, research and service
excellence. For this course, St. George's University is collaborating with it's United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Regional Collaborating Center and the
World Health Organization (WHO)/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Collaborating
Center both located on its campus in Grenada. Students in the 4 week course will interact with
SGU’s faculty and UNFCCC staff as the topic of climate and health is explored with experts at
varying levels of policy to practice towards understanding challenges and presenting solutions.

Course Description:
In the last 130 years, the world has warmed by approximately 0.85oC. Each of the last 3 decades
has been successively warmer than any preceding decade since. Over the last 50 years, human
activities – particularly the burning of fossil fuels – have released sufficient quantities of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases to trap additional heat in the lower atmosphere and affect the
global climate. Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting and precipitation patterns are changing.
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent.
A changing climate impacts our health and wellbeing. Widespread scientific consensus exists
that the world’s climate is changing. Some changes that could negatively affect health include
more variable weather patterns, heat waves, heavy precipitation events, flooding, droughts, more
intense storms, sea level rise, and air pollution. Climate change affects the social and
environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure
shelter. Measuring the health effects from climate change can only be very approximate.
Nevertheless, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, and assuming
continued economic growth and health progress, concluded that climate change is expected to
cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to
heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due
to childhood undernutrition.
The course Climate and Health will be presented over a 4 week period with each consecutive
week focusing on the following modules: 1) Climate and Health 2) Health and Disease 3)
Policies and Practices towards Climate and Health 4) Ethical Considerations of Climate and
Health. Participants can expect recorded presentations, live and interactive seminars and reading
resources as the course content with discussions boards, case studies and seminar presentations
for the assessment.
Course Objectives:
• Define Climate and Health
• Discuss how Climate serves as a determinant of Health
• Examine the policies and practices towards Climate and Health
• Describe ethical considerations of Climate and Health

Course Outline:
Week 1
Introduction to:
• SGUx: Course Learning Management System
• Course: syllabus, schedule and assessment
• Course Community: Discussion board introductions
Module 1: Climate and Health:
• Definition of climate and health
• Climatic determinants of health
• Diseases associated with changes in climate
Live Seminar: Climate and Health
Assessment: Discussion Question:
What climatic conditions in your environment do you identify with serving as determinants of
health?

Week 2:
Module 2: Health and Diseases
• Distribution of climate influenced diseases
• Projected trends of climate associated diseases
Live Seminar: Diseases resulting from Climate Change
Assessment: Activity
• Share a photograph of a climate related health risk factor and describe its associated
disease
Week 3:
Module 3: Policy to Practice
• Framework of priorities and policies on climate action
• Strategies for mitigation and resilience towards climate and health
Live Seminar: Policies and Practices towards Promoting Climate and Health
Case Study: Apply a climate related policy initiative towards a climate related disease outbreak

Week 4:
Module 4: Ethical Consideration of Climate and Health
• Ethical principles
• Ethical principles applicable to climate and health
Live Seminar: Balancing disparities, skill shortages, demographic imbalances, climate change,
economic and political crises, natural and man-made disasters
Assessment: Peer review seminar recording: Self-reflection and assessment of ethical
considerations towards climate and health.