PUBH5551 Climate Change and Public Health

How PUBH5551 is assessed

What PUBH5551 covers

The unit begins with planetary health and climate-health pathways, then moves through adaptation, mitigation, food and healthcare systems, justice, international governance, infectious disease, heat, cities, disasters, mental health and communication.

The guide keeps these topics connected to the assessed research moves: describe evidence accurately, critique its reliability and limits, and turn it into a country-specific public-health recommendation.

The unit moves from planetary health and the ecological and social determinants of health to the pathways through which heat, disasters, food-system disruption, infectious disease, biodiversity change and service interruption affect populations. It repeatedly asks why harms are distributed unevenly, how adaptive capacity is produced, and how mitigation and adaptation can protect health while avoiding new inequities.

The teaching is organised around two intensive workshop blocks with face-to-face and online participation routes. Students encounter perspectives from public health, climate science, economics, law, urban planning, health systems and social justice, and are expected to connect those perspectives to real decisions. Assessment rewards research judgement as much as topic recall.

The annotated bibliography requires accurate description, critical appraisal and reflection on learning. The online quiz covers the climate and public-health material across both blocks and required readings. The major essay asks for a selected country, a clear account of its climate setting and policy response, one focused public-health issue, and recommendations that could reduce the associated burden.

This guide uses a consistent pathway method: define the hazard, locate exposure, explain vulnerability and capacity, judge the evidence, identify distributional effects, and state an implementable action with an accountable actor and measurable outcome. It does not provide a pre-written assessment.

Instead, its original cases and practice prompts help you test claims, compare policy options and build your own evidence trail in line with current University instructions.

Worked example · free

Turn a broad climate topic into a defensible country essay question

Key terms

Planetary health

The health of human civilisation together with the natural systems on which it depends.

Climate-health pathway

The causal route linking a climate hazard through exposure and vulnerability to a health outcome.

Exposure

Contact between a person or population and a climate-related hazard or changed environmental condition.

Vulnerability

The conditions that increase susceptibility to harm or constrain the capacity to anticipate, cope and recover.

Adaptive capacity

The resources, institutions, skills and relationships that enable effective adjustment to climate risks.

Mitigation

Action that reduces greenhouse-gas sources or strengthens sinks in order to limit further climate change.

Adaptation

Adjustment that reduces exposure, sensitivity or consequences and strengthens capacity under actual or expected climate conditions.

Health co-benefit

A health improvement produced alongside the primary climate objective of an intervention.

Climate justice

The fair distribution of climate burdens, benefits, responsibilities and decision-making power.

Just transition

A managed shift away from harmful systems that protects workers, communities and groups already bearing environmental burdens.

Food security

Reliable physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life.

Input-output analysis

A method that traces monetary flows between economic sectors and can attach environmental intensities to estimate supply-chain impacts.

Nationally determined contribution

A country-defined climate commitment communicated and updated under the Paris Agreement process.

Early warning system

A linked process that monitors risk, communicates before harm and triggers a prepared protective response.

Risk communication

The exchange of evidence, uncertainty, values and practical options so people and institutions can make informed protective decisions.

PUBH5551 FAQ

Questions students ask in each PUBH5551 chapter

How is planetary health different from environmental health?

Planetary health makes dependence on natural systems and long-term system change central to the analysis. Environmental health can also study these links, but planetary health explicitly asks whether current health gains degrade ecological foundations and whether policies protect health across populations, species and generations. Chapter 01 · Planetary Health and Climate-Health Systems

Why is hazard not the same as risk?

A hazard has the potential to cause harm, but realised risk depends on exposure, susceptibility and capacity. The same temperature can produce different health burdens across occupations, housing types and service settings. Separating these elements reveals which intervention is likely to protect health. Chapter 02 · Climate Hazards, Pathways and Vulnerability

Can one policy be both mitigation and adaptation?

Yes. The labels describe mechanisms rather than mutually exclusive boxes. Urban green infrastructure may reduce heat exposure and store carbon, while resilient clean energy can lower emissions and protect service continuity. State the primary mechanisms and evaluate each rather than forcing a single label. Chapter 03 · Adaptation, Mitigation and Health Co-benefits

Why is crop yield not enough to explain nutrition?

Nutrition depends on what is produced, whether it reaches markets, price and income, household allocation, water and sanitation, disease and dietary quality. Yield can be stable while access deteriorates, or supply can fall without equivalent health effects if storage and social protection work well. Chapter 04 · Food Systems, Nutrition and Climate

Why are healthcare supply chains important?

Health services purchase complex goods and services whose extraction, manufacture, freight and disposal occur beyond facility boundaries. Focusing only on onsite energy can miss important drivers. Supply-chain analysis helps locate procurement categories and dependencies that affect both footprint and resilience. Chapter 05 · Sustainable Healthcare and Supply Chains

How are responsibility and capacity different?

Responsibility concerns contribution to creating a problem, while capacity concerns resources and institutional ability to respond. They often point in the same direction but not always. A clear argument states which principle supports the proposed share of action or finance and how other principles modify it. Chapter 06 · Climate Justice and Equitable Transitions

Why did Paris use nationally determined contributions?

Universal participation was difficult under a model that imposed negotiated targets on a limited group of states. National determination lets countries formulate ambition in light of their circumstances. The trade-off is an ambition gap, addressed through transparency, review, stocktakes and repeated updates rather than a global regulator. Chapter 07 · Climate Governance and the Paris Agreement

Does warming always increase infectious disease?

No. Temperature and rainfall can change suitability, but transmission also depends on vectors or pathogens, hosts, mobility, behaviour, water and sanitation, immunity, control and healthcare. Some relationships are nonlinear or location-specific. State the pathway and evidence rather than making a universal claim. Chapter 08 · Biodiversity, Zoonoses and Infectious Disease

Why do city temperatures produce unequal exposure?

Neighbourhood materials, shade, housing, occupation, mobility, electricity access, illness and social support modify the dose and the ability to recover. A central weather station does not measure every indoor or occupational condition. Local and subgroup evidence is needed for targeted protection. Chapter 09 · Heat, Cities and Disaster Resilience

Is climate anxiety a mental disorder?

Concern about a real threat is not automatically a disorder. Assess duration, severity, functional impact, coexisting conditions and the social context. Responses can include information, collective agency, community support and services, with clinical care available when distress is persistent or impairing. Chapter 10 · Mental Health, Communication and Public Action

How to prepare for the assessments

Build one evidence system that serves all three assessments. Start with a table containing source, place, population, study design, exposure, outcome, finding, limitation and policy use. After every lecture, place the new concept on a climate-health pathway and write one retrieval question without looking at the slides.

For the bibliography, practise separating description, critical appraisal and personal reflection; do not let summary consume the entry. For the quiz, use short mixed sets that require you to distinguish mitigation from adaptation, observed evidence from projection, and hazard from vulnerability.

Begin the major essay by choosing one country, one public-health issue and one priority population, then audit current policy before drafting recommendations. Each paragraph should carry a claim, mechanism, evidence, equity implication and decision link. Keep a separate verification list for dates, legal status and precise numbers.

In the final week, stop collecting broad background sources and strengthen the weakest links in the pathway. Use AI only within current University rules: for study prompts or explanations where permitted, never as a substitute for your own assessment work, source checking or judgement.