222.665.01
Designing Health Equity: The Intersection of Food Systems, Urban Planning, and Policy

Location
East Baltimore
Term
3rd Term
Department
International Health
Credit(s)
3
Academic Year
2024 - 2025
Instruction Method
In-person
Class Time(s)
Tu, Th, 10:30 - 11:50am
Auditors Allowed
No
Available to Undergraduate
No
Grading Restriction
Letter Grade or Pass/Fail
Course Instructor(s)
Yeeli Mui
Contact Name
Yeeli Mui
Frequency Schedule
Every Year
Description
Are you curious about how urban planning shapes day-to-day resources for healthy living? What are contemporary debates, challenges, and opportunities in food systems? How can public health, urban planning, civil society, and other sectors work together to rebuild food system infrastructures?
Introduces urban and regional planning as an integral part of addressing structural determinants of food and nutrition disparities. Examines the network of actors, infrastructure, resources, power relationships, and local government policies that influence health inequities in food systems in the US and globally. Includes topics related to food security such as land use, food production, gentrification, environmental sustainability, conflict and trauma, and mobility and transportation. Encourages students’ critical thinking in how to reimagine and reshape food and community systems for social, economic, and health equity.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
  1. Determine food system sectors and their actors from production to processing, distribution of food, retail and marketing, consumption, and management of food-related waste
  2. Discuss connections between urban planning and public health, specifically how food links to other functional systems (e.g., housing, water, transportation) and in relation to their spatial contexts
  3. Recognize the role of local government and governance on how food policies are developed, implemented, and evaluated
  4. Critique urban planning processes and systems thinking tools to promote food equity and public health
  5. Develop skills in problem solving, team building, leadership, and communication
Methods of Assessment
This course is evaluated as follows:
  • 20% Discussion
  • 40% Midterm Paper
  • 10% Presentation(s)
  • 30% Group Project(s)
Instructor Consent
No consent required