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

This specialization module, covering both methodological and applied issues in risk assessment, aims to train the type of qualified professionals who are urgently needed in Europe and beyond, in particular in the framework of the implementation of the REACh system for hazard and risk assessment of chemical substances. This curriculum will also represent meeting opportunities for French and international researchers in this field which experiences a steady development, a promise for collaborative scientific production in support to public policies targeted at controlling risks related to the general and occupational environments. This programme is, by nature, inter-disciplinary, at the interface between toxicology, biomathematical modeling, epidemiology and engineering sciences.

Students will be exposed to state-of-the-art presentations from leading scientists in their field, dealing with hazard dose-response modeling, cumulative exposures, alternative methods currently under development for hazard and risk derivation, and with extrapolation issues regarding short to long term exposures, hazard and risks from mature to less mature (infant and children) organisms, or from animals to humans. Illustrations will encompass chemical substances and physical stressors, along with microbial agents.

Workload and ECTS

Class workload	Total workload	ECTS
30	90	3

The toxicity of chemicals or of other environmental stressors is highly dependent on exposure conditions and on the particular vulnerability of the individual or group of persons. The module will address these issues with some emphasis on vulnerability during development and growth and on occupational exposures. The module is essentially multidisciplinary with epidemiological, toxicological and social sciences perspectives.

The following items will be discussed: importance of windows of exposure to carcinogens or reprotoxic agents during pregnancy, in early life and at the workplace; vulnerability of children to physical agents; transgenerational epigenetic effects both in experimental animals and in humans; examples of gene-environment interaction and mechanistic basis of vulnerability, notably during development.

Workload and ECTS

Class workload	Total workload	ECTS
30	90	3