Online Program

293291
Human health and global environmental change: A massive open online course


Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 9:15 a.m. - 9:35 a.m.

Aaron Bernstein, MD MPH, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard School of Public Health/Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA
In May 2013, PH278x: Human Health and Global Environmental Change was launched via EdX, a platform that supports courses designed for students of all ages, means, and nations, and reached an audience of thousands of students from around the world. The course explored the human health effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, and global development and how these health outcomes can be prevented through innovation and foresight. Through a series of short lectures interspersed with assignments, students are assessed in knowledge about course subjects but also in attitudinal change as the course progressed. The wake of adverse health outcomes associated with global environmental changes flows from the developed to the developing world, as problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss emanate largely from wealthier nations and land predominantly on poorer ones. As such, specific attention was paid to the engagement and attitudes of students from developing nations during the class. PH278x, because it is freely available to anyone, sought to provide knowledge about the health dimensions of global environmental change, and how we can ensure the healthiest possible future through our actions today, to those most likely to have the least access to it.

Learning Areas:

Environmental health sciences
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate the potential for widely distributed online coursework to transmit knowledge related to global environmental change effects upon health to those most likely affected by it. Assess the engagement of vulnerable populations with this class via enrollment and participation.

Keyword(s): Public Health Education, Environment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the course director of Human Health and Global Environmental Change, which I have taught at Harvard since 2010, and which I am now designing for EdX, a new multi-institution initiative that offers university courses online. I'm also the Associate Director at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.