180.606.81
Case Studies in Food Production and Public Health
Location
Internet
Term
4th Term
Department
Environmental Health and Engineering
Credit(s)
3
Academic Year
2024 - 2025
Instruction Method
Asynchronous Online
Auditors Allowed
Yes, with instructor consent
Available to Undergraduate
Yes
Grading Restriction
Letter Grade or Pass/Fail
Course Instructor(s)
Contact Name
Frequency Schedule
Every Year
Resources
Prerequisite
Introduction to Online Learning
Given prevailing trends in food and agriculture, what does the future of our food system look like? Can we chart a path toward a healthier, sustainable, resilient, and more equitable future? What are the roles of policy, technology, and behavior change?
Explores critical food system priorities including the dynamics between agriculture and the climate crisis, emerging threats from zoonotic diseases, agricultural land use, and the health of workers and rural populations. Invites insights from leading experts on alternative proteins, institutional food procurement, carbon sequestration, and other advances in food system change. Challenges students to reconcile competing priorities and conflicting recommendations. Applies an array of frameworks, including a One Health lens, to the public health and ecological impacts of food production. Draws lectures from the peer-reviewed literature and includes dynamic podcast-style interviews.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Analyze agricultural practices that threaten public and planetary health, their underlying drivers, and projected implications under business-as-usual scenarios.
- Translate insights from leading experts, and their real-world experiences in research and policy, to students’ own career aspirations.
- Apply public health frameworks, including a One Health lens, to understanding food system challenges
- Critically evaluate potential food system solutions and their associated tradeoffs.
- Craft nuanced, evidence-based scientific recommendations to address food system challenges.
Methods of Assessment
This course is evaluated as follows:
- 20% Participation
- 20% Assignments
- 20% Final Paper
- 15% Group Presentation
- 15% Quizzes
- 10% Discussion Board