October 20 - November 17, 2019
St. George's University (SGU) presents the course, Climate and Health, as part of its One Health, One Medicine Open Access course series. This course 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.
A changing climate impacts our health and well-being. Widespread scientific consensus indicates that the world’s climate is changing. Some changes, including variable weather patterns, heat waves, flooding, droughts, intense storms, sea level rising and air pollution, can negatively affect the health of the public. Climate change also affects social and environmental determinants of health such as clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food supply and secure shelter
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 policy-making experts at varying levels, with a goal towards understanding the challenges of this issue and presenting solutions.
The course will include various perspectives from the public health community in live interviews, recorded seminars and QA sessions.
Maryam Navi is an interdisciplinary researcher in environment, communities and health. She joined the UNFCCC – UNU Early Career Climate Fellowship Programme in October 2018 after the completion of her PhD in Public Health with a Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence from the University of Adelaide, Australia. Over recent years, Maryam has led or participated in several research projects on health and environmental risk assessments, environmental pollution and monitoring, and spatial analysis of vulnerability to climate change. She has a number of publications on findings of her research in peer-reviewed journals. She has volunteered with the Australian Red Cross on social support programmes and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs on UN E-Government Survey 2018.
She is currently with the Adaptation programme in the UNFCCC, mainly supporting the work of the Adaptation Committee. She is also the UNFCCC health focal point.
Vintura Silva heads the UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centre for the Caribbean, based at St George’s University in Grenada and is also part of the Caribbean MRV Hub team. He has been with the UNFCCC secretariat since 2008. Before his current posting, he lead the UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centres for Africa , Latin America and coordinated the office for Asia Pacific. Prior to joining UNFCCC, Vintura had worked as an international consultant on climate change mitigation and national GHG inventories. He had completed his doctoral studies in International Business Administration and holds Masters degrees in international Business Administration, Industrial Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry.
Dr. Daniel Buss is the advisor of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization for the region of the Americas on the three Rio Conventions – Climate Change (UNFCCC), Biological Diversity (UN CBD) and Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – and on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the 2030 Agenda. With a background on Ecology (BSc and MSc) and Public Health (DSc), and natural from Brazil, he represented his country’s Ministry of Health in several international meetings, with topics covering the SDGs, climate and health, environmental indicators and the connections between health and the environment. He was one of the leading authors of the recent book (2015) Connecting global priorities: Biodiversity and human health – a state of knowledge review, from the WHO and CBD.
Martinez's work focuses on assessing the social, health and economic impact of climate change, as well as on tracking the implementation and effectiveness of adaption policy and activities. He specializes on the assessment and prevention of direct health and socioeconomic impact of extreme weather events in urban areas.
He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of the Basque Country (Spain), and a Master of Public Health degree from Boston University through a Fulbright Scholarship.
For this course, St. George's University is collaborating with policy-making experts at varying levels, with a goal towards understanding the challenges of this issue and presenting solutions.
| Length: | 4 weeks |
|---|---|
| Effort: | 2-3 hours per week |
| Start Date: | October 20, 2019 |
| End Date: | November 17, 2019 Course will remain open and become on-demand after end date |
| Price: | FREE to attendOptional $50 for paid exam with ability to earn 4 continuing education (NBPHE) credits. |
The course and all the content is absolutely free. Only those students who choose to take the exam for continuing education credit will be required to pay a $50 fee.
Join a global community to explore current topics in climate change related health issues and interact with a global community and leading authorities.
All required course material will be made available on SGU Online. You will be asked to download a small, free application called ZOOM to join the video seminar.
To receive a certificate and credit, you must enroll in the course and achieve a passing score (70%) by completing course activities including watching the live or recorded seminars, participating in course discussions and completing the weekly quizzes.
If you have any questions about the series, please contact us at onlinelearning@sgu.edu
