Environmental Health

• SPH EH 851: Advanced GIS for Public Health and Climate Research
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH EH 811 or other GIS course training with approval from instructor - The purpose of this course is to develop each student's capacity to design and carry out public health and climate-related geospatial analyses working with multiple GIS platforms. Students will learn how to design, create, and use a wide variety of spatial information to support analytic modeling. The emphasis will be on data integration from multiple sources to support urban health and climate change analyses including vector and remote sensing datasets. Students will explore existing case studies on how GIS is used to conduct climate change, urban health, and sustainability geospatial modeling and learn how to develop and apply similar models in their own field of interest. Topics include database design and implementation, data management, geoprocessing concepts and tools, automation of data processing, and model building. Students who complete this course should be able to participate as a public health geospatial analyst in professional environments and research-oriented project teams and to work with non-GIS experts to help them understand and carry out spatial analyses.
• SPH EH 866: Risk Assessment Methods
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPH EH 730 or SPH EH 731) SPH EH 730 or SPH EH 731 may be taken concurrently or consent from instructor - Nearly all regulatory authorities globally rely on risk assessment for decision-making. Students learn practical application of risk assessment methods to various environmental problems. The focus of the course is on human health risk assessment and teaches students to quantify the risk of illness from exposures to chemicals, pathogens, and air pollution. The strengths and weaknesses of risk assessment methods, the inherent uncertainties, the relationship between risk assessment and risk management, and different approaches to the use of scientific evidence in policymaking are discussed. Applications of the risk assessment framework in less-traditional contexts will also be discussed. Students conduct a risk assessment and communicate process and findings in response to a community concern or other relevant topic.
• SPH EH 872: Environmental Data and Exposure Modeling
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPH EH 730 or SPH EH 731 AND SPH BS 723 or SPH BS 730) or consent from instructor - Suppose you need to analyze the potential risks of a proposed point source or a possible replacement chemical in a consumer product. To do this, you need to know exposures to a pollutant, but you can't measure them for everyone. What do you do? Estimation of exposure is an essential skill for building a sustainable economy, evaluating regulatory compliance or permits, risk assessment, environmental epidemiology, examining environmental justice, and other purposes. Students will learn how to use publicly available data and models to estimate exposure. This hands-on course develops skills in the assumptions behind and the use of equilibrium models, compartmental models, and dispersion models--all widely used in the field. Sample problems include estimation of exposure from eating contaminated fish using sediment PCB concentrations, exposure to flame retardants or PFAS from biomonitoring (blood, urine) data, and inhalation of air pollutants emitted by an industrial facility. This course is suitable for PhD students as well as MPH or MS students who meet the prerequisites.
• SPH EH 961: Directed Studies in Environmental Health
  Directed Studies in Environmental Health provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. The directed study can be an exploration of a particular aspect of environmental health, a practice experience, or an applied project aligned with the work of a faculty member. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed study proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education. Approval is needed if credits are sought to replace required Certificate courses.
• SPH EH 962: Directed Research in Environmental Health
  Directed Research in Environmental Health provides the opportunity for students to conduct research on a topic of mutual interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed research proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.
• SPH EH 980: Continuing Study in Environmental Health
  Graduate Prerequisites: Must be doctoral student working on dissertation. - Doctoral students who have completed all academic course requirements, must register for Continuing Study every Fall and Spring semester until they have successfully defended their dissertation and applied to graduate from SPH. Students are charged the equivalent of two credits of tuition, student health insurance, and all relevant fees, and are certified as full time. EH980 is a non-graded, no academic credit status. All students registered for continuing study will attend EH Doctoral Seminars scheduled by the Director of Doctoral Education for EH.