Learning outcomes

  • identify animal health, public health and environmental issues in problem situations
  • adopt a technique for methodically researching valid scientific information and analysing it critically in order to propose solutions to scientific, social or ethical problems

Goals

By the end of this course, students will have developed cross-disciplinary knowledge of the causes and consequences of the environment-health link. They will have worked with students from other courses and identified the semantic differences between common terms depending on the context in which they are used.

Content

General organisation
 
Introduction to the course during the Sustainable Development Education Days
During the first lesson, the methodology of the course and the evaluation are presented to the group. Each group has been given a research question to work on during the semester with a view to a presentation at the end of the year. This presentation will take the place of the assessment.
A theory course is given to students
 
Example of theoretical elements covered
 
  • Common foundations
    • What is sustainable development in human and animal healthcare?
    • Introduction to ecology and biodiversity from a global change perspective
  • Identification of the problem :
    • link between human health, farm health, agri-food management
      • monitoring epidemics: avian flu / human flu
      • use of antibiotics on farms and antibiotic resistance
      • Farm effluents (dust, metabolites, ammonia/nitrogen/phosphorus => green tides, etc.)
      • Phytosanitary products: impact on biodiversity, residues in food.
    • health and ecosystems
      • origin of zoonoses
      • freshwater management: infiltration/run-off zones.
      • use of animal products in medicine: e.g. krill and omega-3, food supplements and xenobiotics, Fetal Calf Serum, etc.
  • Natural environment and human health
    • Biodiversity and health
      • Dependence on changes in atmospheric conditions: temperature, humidity, fine particles, etc.
      • Psyche and environmental quality
      • Maintaining renewable resources / food / quality of food produced / fished / hunted
    • Atmospheric conditions and health
      • Limiting conditions for human life: temperature - humidity / ‘non-viable’ geographical areas
      • Fine particles, NOx, SOx, O3
    • Water quality and health
      • xenobiotics and PBT classification
      • heavy metals
      • Microplastics
        • influence of microplastics metabolism / enrichment endocrine disruptors
        • origin of microplastics and link with healthcare activity
        • influence on the food chain, food contamination
        • Alteration of biodiversity (death of marine organisms)
        • cross-cutting issues / leadership communication
    • Food
      • Comparative malnutrition north-south / Lancet eat health plate.
        • deficiencies, fat imbalance
    • Living environment
      • Noise
      • UV radiation
      • sleep cycle - screens
    • Legislation
      • Temperatures and employment law
      • Notions of obligation of means and loss of chance
      • Medical ethics and the environment
    • Bioethics
      • Historical origins
      • Deontological ethics - sociological evolution of dignity (human > living)
      • Ethical issues relating to the beginning and end of life
    • Political science and health
      • Climate wars, migration
      • Emerging and re-emerging diseases
    • Collaboration and prevention
      • UN bodies: WHO - FAO - UNESCO
    • Practice of research, pharmaceutical sciences, human and veterinary medicine and the environment
      • individualisation of drug dosages,
      • iatrogenesis,
      • antibiotic therapy management,
      • hospital management and leadership
      • influence of healthcare (human and animal medicine, pharmaceutical industry and medical technology, hospital as community) on the environment: specific cases
        • halogenated gases,
        • nitrous oxide,
        • carbon footprint of techniques,
        • xenobiotics,
        • antibiotic resistance,
        • digital pollution, 
        • medical waste pathways,
        • radioisotopes,

Teaching methods

  • ex cathedra in an auditorium
  • active teaching based on the development of a research question

Assessment method

Students are asked to produce a document (poster, text, short video) that identifies the causes and consequences of an altered environment on health, based on a research question. They will have to use collaborative intelligence to take advantage of the skills of the members of their group. They will identify the elements of the research question for which experimental data or scientific reflection is available in the literature. They may identify factoids and ideological elements, making them explicit and correcting them.
 
The student will present the results of his/her research at the closing day of the JEDDT. This work will be based on scientific articles and will follow the scientific method. A public presentation will have to be made: in a conventional way as a poster or on the model of my thesis in 120 seconds. Or freely in the form of a short video or artistic presentation accompanied by an explanation. 

Language of instruction

French