This presentation aims to increase the students’ knowledge about environmental epidemiology, by introducing different study designs used to study health effects of exposure to outdoor air pollution. All study designs are illustrated by examples, starting with the Great Smog (Killer Fog) of London in 1952, one of the landmarks in environmental epidemiology.

Nearly one third of the world’s population are exposed to high levels of indoor air pollution from the household’s use of solid fuel. The fuel is mainly biomass burning under poor combustion conditions
in open fires or primitive stoves and with low ventilation. This costs more than 4 million lives every year and enormous suffering in particular among women and children.

What is air pollution? What is it in the air that is harmful? This lecture focuses on air pollution, where it occur, and how it spread.

In this presentation, we will describe the global levels and trends in major air pollutants and related health burden. Air pollution is an important global risk factor for disease. People who live in more polluted areas develop more often chronic and infectious disease and die prematurely as compared to people living in areas with low air pollution.

In large part of the World, people spend more than 90 percent of the time in indoor environments, where air quality is important for health. The environment outside the building, what goes on inside the building and the exchange of air pollutants affects the indoor air. Tight buildings can reduce energy consumption and entry of outdoor air pollutants, but unless ventilation is right indoor air pollutants from combustion processes, dampness, microbes, the dwellers bio effluents,
appliances, care and cleaning products, clothing, furniture, building materials, the underground and many other sources will build up indoors causing important health effects.

In this presentation, we will discuss how we can know whether one individual is more susceptible to harmful effect of air pollution than others are. Everyone is exposed, but some groups may be more susceptible to the harmful effect of air pollution than others may.

In this lecture, we will describe the mechanisms by which air pollution causes pulmonary health effects in the human population. The pulmonary health effects include exacerbation of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), increased risk of lower
respiratory tracts infections and lung cancer.

In this presentation, we will describe the mechanisms by which air pollution causes health effects in other parts of the body than the lungs. In continuation of this, we will discuss the important mechanisms of extra pulmonary health effect.

There is a long way before the whole world complies with the WHO guidelines for air quality, but the enormous burden of disease from outdoor air pollution forces us to increase action to come as far as possible. In continuation of this, we will discuss what we can do about air pollution at global, international, national, city and individual levels. Most of the actions to reduce air pollution also mitigates climate change and/or promote health in other ways – so there are many win-win and
win-win-win situations

Five years after the Paris climate agreement to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2°C” the world observed a 1.2°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. In order to protect human health, it is imperative that efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep the temperature targets agreed. The changing climate affects the conditions for human health, and the basic requirements for maintaining good health. Starting with the 2015 Lancet Commission on climate change and health that described tackling climate change as the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century, the talk will give an overview of some health impacts covered in the Lancet Countdown and end by focusing on what the Lancet Countdown in 2020 called the often “unseen” impacts of climate change on human health – the mental health impacts.

Lecture slides by Dr. Jennifer Infanti (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and recommended related/supporting readings for an introductory course in global health. This is one of the first lectures in the course, covering some of the foundations of the field of research and practice we call global health. It briefly introduces the history and development of global health, key concepts and definitions of global health, and provides an overview of the breadth of theoretical models that can be applied to make sense of various global health challenges. By the end of the lecture, students should have: 1) Acquired a basic understanding of the defining features of global health. 2) Gained an awareness of the diversity of theoretical approaches that can be used to approach and understand global health problems 

The video lesson aims to expand students’ knowledge of abortion as a global health issue. Induced abortion is one of the most contested and controversial problems in the field of global health and an issue that concerns fetus’ rights, women’s rights and human rights. This lesson focuses particularly on abortion stigma and its consequences for women’s health worldwide. The topic of abortion will be discussed within a context of dominant ideas of womanhood, motherhood, and sexuality, addressing abortion not just as a health issue, but also as an ideological battle over gender and sexuality.

Our planet is currently being challenged by dramatic changes to earth and human systems under the influence of climate change and variability. These include changes of population and environmental dynamics that impacts human health. Thus, climate change is considered the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. Health impacts can be direct typically related to extreme weather events; indirect with linkages to climate change induced environmental alterations and damage or in relation to displacement, conflict and social disruption. This presentation provides a series of examples of changes of environmental and social determinants of health with negative or positive health impacts. These include impacts on communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and mental health of importance in particular in vulnerable urban and rural settings as well as among sensitive community groups exposed to variations in temperature and precipitation patterns.

This presentation provides an introduction and explores the trends in the five sexual and reproductive health priority areas over the last decades:
Maternal and newborn health, family planning, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections and sexual health.

The purpose of this video lesson is to give the students an introduction to the concept continuum of care within the field of sexual and reproductive health. Malaria in pregnancy will be used as an example to demonstrate why it is important to understand that health and disease and the management hereof is not linked to one time point in life or to one place in the health system. The students will learn that to understand the health of today and of tomorrow we need to understand the health of yesterday.

Cure, prevent or promote? Watch Professor Hans Rosling explain the different roles of a health system.
Get transcript for video here: https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/module/58789/overview

This presentation provides an introduction to the social determinants and drivers of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD). Poor social determinants leads to a higher risk of illness and a lower chance of having suitable healthcare access, which leads to illness, which in turn leads right back to a deeper level of poor social determinants. In continuation of this, we’ll discuss how to address social determinants and how we need to be involved.

The purpose of this lesson is to expand the student´s knowledge about diabetes.
The world experience an epidemic of type 2 diabetes, especially in low and middle-income countries. Diabetes is no longer a disease of high-income countries and urban cities but impact upon rural populations and the poorest segments of the population.
Participants: Professor Venkat Narayan.

In recent decades, it has been recognized that maternal health and fetal development plays a critical role in developing diabetes and at the same time, diabetes is an important but often unrecognized contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality. This presentation talks about the links between diabetes and maternal, and child health. Furthermore, it is explored why an intergenerational perspective on diabetes prevention is needed.

This presentation provides an introduction to the calculation and use of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). DALY is increasingly used as a measurement for disease burden when comparing the relative burden of specific diseases or a combination of diseases across or within populations.