The course covers interdisciplinary scientific issues such as environmental systems, ecology, epidemiology, population dynamics, biomathematics and biostatistics, biodiversity changes, ecosystem modifications, climate change, agriculture development and intensive farming, transcontinental air transport and international trade, established and emerging diseases. The instructors are renowned specialists in medical sciences, ecology/evolutionary biology and biomathematics affiliated to the most famous universities and research institutes in the world.

The course discusses the many different examples of disease emergence/outbreaks and their spatial spread, that are interconnected to Earth systems disruption/alteration and globalization events. It particularly focuses on the dynamics of Earth physical/biological systems and the impacts of increasing human population/consumption on these systems.

The syllabus is organized around major questions including

• the exploration of the linkages between diseases and globalization due to environmental hazards and modernization (e.g. transcontinental air transport of goods and people),
• the examination of the consequences of these connections on human health, and
• the evaluation of the risks associated with not considering the complexity of these webs of interactions. Strong emphasis will be made on the applications to public health policies and recent decisions made by international WHO, UNEP, UNESCO, ICSU programmes in environmental health sciences research initiatives and health perspectives will be discussed.
  

Workload and ECTS

Class workload	Total workload	ECTS
30	90	3