Upon successful completion of the course, students are able to:
- Describe concepts and theories from health geography in relation to topical themes,
- Understand through which mechanisms environmental influences affect health-behaviours and health;
- Explain the importance of understanding environmental influences on health for urban policies, design and planning;
- Design a small-scale scientific study and collect data on environmental influences, health-behaviours and health;
- Write a concise scientific paper about your own small-scale scientific study, following specific journal guidelines.
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Health and place are interrelated in all kinds of ways. The places where we are born, grow up, study, work, and travel, directly influences our health and well-being. Health geography is a sub-discipline of human geography, which deals with the interaction between people and the environment. Health geography views health from a holistic perspective, and it conceptualizes the role of place, location and geography in health, health-behaviours, well-being and disease (Dummer, 2008).
The main aim of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the field of health geography. In this course, topical themes for population health are discussed, such as obesity, physical activity, healthy aging, and health inequalities. We will apply a socio-ecological perspective to population health problems, which means that we discuss questions like: what are the micro and macro settings (e.g. household, neighbourhood, city, region, country) in which several environmental factors (e.g. physical, social, economic, political factors) may influence health outcomes? You will also carry out a small-scale investigation yourself, and write down your results in the form of a scientific journal article. You learn how you can scientifically study questions in the field of health geography, and how answers to these questions can be used to prevent or reduce health problems. In this way, you find out how you, as a human geographer or spatial planner, can influence the health and well-being of populations.
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