Course Syllabus

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ENHANCE: Environmental Health Analysis

Curriculum & Experience

Module 1: Environmental Health Sciences Crash Course

Instructor

RAZ: Rebecca A. Zarate, MA, MEd

Ms-RAZ@utexas.edu

Welcome to ENHANCE! You are free to view an overview of this course by clicking on the Modules tab, however, you will not be able to view videos, interact with any assignments, or download any files until you join the course. 

To join the course:

1) If you are already have a University of Texas at Austin UT EID, you can self-enroll by clicking on the "+ Join this Course" button to the right or bottom of this page. You will then be prompted to log in with your UT EID.

2) If you are not affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin, you can request a UT EID here Links to an external site.. You will need to be granted Canvas access (called "entitlement") which can be done by emailing Canvas@utlists.utexas.edu and requesting access to this Canvas course. Entitlements lasts for six months. If you need more time, you can reach out to Canvas via the email to request another six months. Once you have been granted entitlements, you can self-enroll clicking "+ Join this Course" button to the right or bottom of this page.

Course Description

This course is designed to introduce you to the field of environmental health sciences. In this course, you will learn about classic environmental health topics like measuring exposure to environmental contaminants, approaches to studying the health effects of these exposures, and the translation of scientific findings into policy.

Course Materials and Resources

Core Materials and Resources: All course the materials for this course are posted on Canvas. This includes recorded videos, PowerPoints for each lecture, research articles, assignments, supplemental data files, and links to additional resources.

Suggested Texts

  • Frumkin, H. (Ed.). (2016). Environmental health: from global to local. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Assessments

Quizzes

There are short quizzes on Canvas to help keep you on track with the content and videos. Quizzes cover the materials from the recorded lesson and the research articles reviewed in this course and require you to interpret figures and results from research articles.

Discussion Prompts

For every lesson there will be discussion prompts meant to facilitate discussion between ENHANCE students/participants. In addition to sharing your own thoughts and ideas, we encourage you to read and comment on the responses of others.

Tell Someone About…

“Tell Someone About…” assignments involve telling someone about a particular environmental health sciences concept we have covered. Seneca The Younger (a Roman philosopher, 65 AD) once said, "While we teach, we learn." In more recent years, the "The Protégé Effect" captures a similar idea. When you explain what you recently learned to someone else, it helps you gain a deeper understanding of that knowledge. Furthermore, when it comes to environmental health sciences, the ability to effectively communicate findings and ideas is paramount. The goal of this assignment is for you to reach out to another person and explain, in your own non-technical terms, an assigned topic we've gone over in this course.

The person you pick can be a friend, significant other, parent, sibling, even a stranger-- it just has to be someone else. Using your own words, explain the assigned topic. Even if you feel you don't fully understand the topic, give it a go explaining it to the person. Encourage them to ask questions-- again, don't worry if you feel you don't know the answer. The idea is just to help you articulate what you think it means to someone else. Ideally the dialogue will help you better understand the topic and you'll have taught someone something cool and important about environmental health sciences.

Topics for Module 1: Environmental Health Sciences Crash Course

1.1-5 Environmental Health Sciences Introduction:

A brief introduction into the health sciences field including a retrospective look into the field and anecdotes from history such as the aqueducts of Ancient Rome, The Great Stink, and John Snow and the cholera outbreak in the 1850s. Then we move on to more contemporary environmental health issues such as the widespread use of asbestos and pesticides, first brought into the public conscience by Rachel Carlson’s book, Silent Spring. Lastly, we introduce the idea of Environmental Health Justice.

1.2-5 Effects of Environmental Agents

A review of Air, Water, Soil, and Chemical agents and their role in health. Research articles are reviewed and results interpreted.

PM2.5 and PM10 in the Air and Health Outcomes

  • Powell, H., Krall, J. R., Wang, Y., Bell, M. L., & Peng, R. D. (2015). Ambient coarse particulate matter and hospital admissions in the Medicare Cohort Air Pollution Study, 1999–2010. Environmental health perspectives, 123(11), 1152-1158.

Lead Contamination in Flint, MI Water

  • Hanna-Attisha, M., LaChance, J., Sadler, R. C., & Champney Schnepp, A. (2016). Elevated blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint drinking water crisis: a spatial analysis of risk and public health response. American journal of public health, 106(2), 283-290.

Essential and Non-Essential Metals in Soil from Urban Gardens

  • Lupolt, S. N., Santo, R. E., Kim, B. F., Green, C., Codling, E., Rule, A. M., ... & Nachman, K. E. (2021). The Safe Urban Harvests Study: A Community-Driven Cross-Sectional Assessment of Metals in Soil, Irrigation Water, and Produce from Urban Farms and Gardens in Baltimore, Maryland. Environmental health perspectives, 129(11), 117004.

Bisphenols (BPA, BPS, BFA) Chemicals and Asthma in Low-Income Children

  • Quirós-Alcalá, L., Hansel, N. N., McCormack, M., Calafat, A. M., Ye, X., Peng, R. D., & Matsui, E. C. (2021). Exposure to bisphenols and asthma morbidity among low-income urban children with asthma. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 147(2), 577-586.

1.3-5 Exposure Assessment

A brief introduction on how exposures to contaminants, pollutants, and other substances are measured and assessed.

Outdoor Exposure Assessment Methods, Mobile Pollutants

  • Henneman, L. R., Shen, H., Hogrefe, C., Russell, A. G., & Zigler, C. M. (2021). Four Decades of United States Mobile Source Pollutants: Spatial–Temporal Trends Assessed by Ground-Based Monitors, Air Quality Models, and Satellites. Environmental science & technology, 55(2), 882-892.

Indoor Exposure Assessment Methods, Sampling Devices for Common Indoor Allergens

  • Grant, T., Rule, A. M., Koehler, K., Wood, R. A., & Matsui, E. C. (2019). Sampling devices for indoor allergen exposure: pros and cons. Current allergy and asthma reports, 19(1), 1-8.

1.4-5 Policy and Communication

A short overview of how research goes from the lab to public policy. We discuss hurdles and pitfalls such as conflicts of interest and communicating research to the public. We also present a short anecdote about the Donora Smog Event and the repercussions that followed.

1.5-5 Environmental Health Sciences Subfields

We close our environmental health sciences crash course by introducing a few subfields in environmental health sciences that haven’t already been covered -- though there are many more!

Toxicology and Animal Models, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC)

  • Hernandez Scudder, M. E., Young, R. L., Thompson, L. M., Kore, P., Crews, D., Hofmann, H. A., & Gore, A. C. (2021). EDCs reorganize brain-behavior phenotypic relationships in rats. Journal of the Endocrine Society, 5(5), bvab021.

Occupational Health, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Nail Salons

  • Ma, G. X., Wei, Z., Husni, R., Do, P., Zhou, K., Rhee, J., ... & Yeh, M. C. (2019). Characterizing occupational health risks and chemical exposures among Asian nail salon workers on the East Coast of the United States. Journal of community health, 44(6), 1168-1179.

Climate Change & Health

  • Eguiluz-Gracia, I., Mathioudakis, A. G., Bartel, S., Vijverberg, S. J., Fuertes, E., Comberiati, P., ... & Hoffmann, B. (2020). The need for clean air: the way air pollution and climate change affect allergic rhinitis and asthma. Allergy, 75(9), 2170-2184.

Hazardous Waste Disposal

  • The Love Canal Disaster

Risk Assessment