|
EVR
4867
Environmental
Epidemiology & Risk Assessment
|
Required
& Suggested Texts:
Biomarkers
in Risk Assessment: Validity & Validation
(2001) International
Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), World Health Organization,
Washington, D.C., Chapters 1-3. http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc222.htm
Human
Exposure Assessment
(2000) Environmental Health Criteria 214, International Programme
on Chemical Safety, The World Health Organization, Washington, D.C.,
Chapters 1-2. http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc214.htm
Principles
for the Assessment of Risks to Human Health from Exposure to Chemicals
(1999) International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS),
World Health Organization, Washington, D.C. http://www.who.int/pcs/risk-assessment-ehc/docs/ehc210_exposure.htm
Guidelines
on Studies in Environmental Epidemiology (1983)
International
Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), World Health Organization,
Washington, D.C., Chapters 1-2.
http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc27.htm
Principles
and Methods for Evaluating The Toxicity of Chemicals: Part 1 (1978) International
Programme on Chemical Safety, The World Health Organization, Washington,
D.C.,
Chapters 1-2. http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/EHC006.HTM
Morton, R.F.,
Hebel, J.R.; McCarter, R.J. (2006) A Study Guide to Epidemiology &
Biostatistics (Sixth Edition). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers.
Aschengrau, A.,
& Seage III, G. (2008)
Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health. (Second Edition)
Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett.
O'Brien, M., (2002)
Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk
Assessment. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Suggested
Reading: (Highly Suggested!)
Lipson,
Charles (2004) Doing
Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism,
and Achieve Real Academic Success (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing,
and Publishing) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Course
Description:
This
course is designed as an introduction to basic concepts and
issues associated with environmental epidemiology and risk assessment.
Students will learn the language of these disciplines and the underlying
concepts. Thereafter, they will apply this knowledge to environmental
threats and concerns. The course will consider environmental factors
that may negatively influence human health, as well as considering
threats to the health of ecosystems. This course serves to prepare the
student for initial career pursuits the area environmental health and
serves as a foundation for graduate training in environmental studies
and public health.
|
|
Objectives:
One
Provide
students with a thorough understanding of concepts and applications
relating to the utilization of Risk Assessment and Environmental
Epidemiology techniques in public health settings.
Two
Familiarize
students with those agents that negative impact human and ecological
health.
Three
Prepare
students with skills and knowledge requisite for preparing and
evaluating environmental risks which may impact flora and fauna within
our environment, while paying particular attention to the impact of
toxic agents upon human populations.
Four
Prepare
students with an understanding research methods appropriate for use in
epidemiology and risk assessment.
Five
Prepare
students to be able to read and interpret scientific articles pertaining
to risk assessment and human / environmental epidemiology.
|
|
Basic
Course Requirements
|
| Attend,
participate in class, and submit homework on a regular basis.
Students must participate fully during each class session. In every
case, students must answer weekly assigned questions and post their
responses to all questions by 5 p.m. on Saturday of each week. Students failing to
log on to the course lesson board and successfully submit their homework on
a weekly basis will be dropped from the course.
All assignments, with
the exception of the epidemiology problem set exercises, must include
citations for each question sufficient enough for the instructor to
determine where the answers were drawn from, as well as complete
references at the end of each question set. Citations and references
must be in APA style. This course includes
a strongly suggested reading to assist you with this task (Charles
Lipson's (2004) Doing
Honest Work in College). You will be deducted significant credit
from all of your assignments if you don't learn very quickly how to use
APA citations and references appropriately. I will expect every
student to be familiar with this approach since it is taught in
virtually every middle school and high school in the U.S. So, in the
interest of not losing any course credit and to insure you don't find
yourself plagiarizing any of your work, you would be strongly advised to
purchase this book and learn how to cite and reference appropriately
from the onset.
Answers and questions must be included in
homework, to include the correct numbering of assigned questions. Any
work that has been copied verbatim from a source or that has been
"cut and pasted" as responses to questions will be ignored.
Such verbatim responses included in work that is not fully cited and
referenced will be considered to be plagiarized and the student will
receive an F for the course. All work submitted must be written in the
student's own words.
|
| Successfully
complete the competency examinations.
Both exams must be completed within a week of being posted on the Lesson
board. |
|
Attendance Policy
Attend,
participate in class, and submit homework on a
regular basis.
Students must participate fully during each
class session. In every case, students must
answer weekly assigned questions and post their
responses to all questions by Friday of each
week. Students failing to log on to the course
lesson board and successfully submit their
homework on a weekly basis will be dropped from
the course.
From time to time students may be required to
attend one or more personal conferences with
the instructor. Whenever feasible, the
consultation should happen in person at FGCU.
However, if distance proves to be an obstacle
then students may be required to meet at an
off-campus location or to schedule and attend a
telephone conference with the instructor. These
conferences contribute toward the student's
attendance and participation grade. Students do
not have the option of not attending conferences
when the instructor so instructs them to.
Students failing to attend conferences can
expect to experience a significant reduction in
credit for their participation and attendance
portion of the grade, or may be awarded an
incomplete grade that can revert to an F if the
student continues to refuse participating in a
student/faculty conference.
Finally, it is important for all students to
remain cognizant that all of their interactions
with the instructor must maintain a civil,
respectful and cordial tone. Incivility,
rudeness and disrespect directed toward the
instructor will not be tolerated. Students may
be asked to withdraw from the class if they
cannot honor this expectation, and can expect to
see significant deductions to the attendance and
participation portion of their grade.
Consequently, attendance and participation
consists of (1) regular online attendance in the
class (2) regular online participation in the
class as demonstrated by the regular and timely
submission of complete homework and exams, (3)
regular and appropriate posting of homework on
the ANGEL website in the appropriate format, (4)
meeting all criteria for homework submission,
such as use of APA citations and references, (4)
prompt attention to email messages from the
instructor, (5) attendance and civil
participation in all scheduled consultation
meetings. Failure to comply with any of these
factors will result in a reduction in credit for
this portion of the course at the discretion of
the instructor.
Academic Integrity
All assignments, with the
exception of the epidemiology problem set
exercises, must include citations for each
question sufficient enough for the instructor to
determine where the answers were drawn from, as
well as complete references at the end of each
question set. Citations and references must be
in APA style. This
course includes a strongly suggested reading to
assist you with this task (Charles
Lipson's (2004)
Doing Honest Work in
College). You will be deducted
significant credit from all of your assignments
if you don't learn very quickly how to use APA
citations and references appropriately. I
will expect every student to be familiar with
this approach since it is taught in virtually
every middle school and high school in the U.S.
So, in the interest of not losing any course
credit and to insure you don't find yourself
plagiarizing any of your work, you would be
strongly advised to purchase this book and learn
how to cite and reference appropriately from the
onset.
Answers and questions must
be included in homework, to include the correct
numbering of assigned questions. Any work that
has been copied verbatim from a source or that
has been "cut and pasted" as responses to
questions will be ignored. Such verbatim
responses included in work that is not fully
cited and referenced will be considered to be
plagiarized and the student will receive an F
for the course. All work submitted must be
written in the student's own words.
|
|
Grading
Criteria:
|
Competency
Exam One |
32% |
|
Competency Exam Two |
32% |
|
Attendance & Participation as determined by
homework assignment performance. (Being
prepared to answer weekly assigned
questions) |
36% |
| |
|
Grading Scale
|
97-100% |
A+ |
|
94-96% |
A |
|
90-93% |
A- |
|
87-89% |
B+ |
|
84-86% |
B |
|
80-83% |
B- |
|
77-79% |
C+ |
|
74-76% |
C |
|
70-73% |
C- |
|
67-69% |
D+ |
|
64-66% |
D |
|
60-63% |
D- |
|
59% and Below |
F |
Homework submitted later than 5:00 p.m. on the final
date of the class session will will be considered late
homework and will not be credited toward class
attendance and participation. Distance learning courses
are considered to operate over a seven day week period.
NOTE: For all
students, course assignments and schedule, course
objectives, and grading criteria, distributions and
weights may change as circumstances dictate and at the
discretion of the instructor.
|
|
Prerequisites:
No
prerequisites are required, although Environmental Health is suggested.
Study
Questions, and Homework:
|
|
Students
participating in class sessions will, on a weekly basis, prepare their
homework assignments and post their responses on the course
bulletin board. All posted attachments must be in Word format.
The instructor will review the responses
and the homework posted on the Lesson board and will make responses on
assignments to the entire class over the ANGEL lesson board, based upon the
nature of the responses and work provided by students.
Typically,
students should be prepared to spend 2 - 3 hours of preparation &
study for every 1 hour of classroom time. This
formula, which applies to general time commitment for both classroom and
distant learners, should yield approximately 6 to 9 hours of course
effort weekly. Some week's assignments may entail less time investment,
while other class periods may entail more effort.
Communications
& Consultation: When to Use E-Mail, Telephone, Lesson board and Office
Consultations
The instructor is
available for either face-to-face or telephone consultation during
office hours (Thursday 1-4). E-mail should be utilized only for
the purpose of informing the instructor of difficulties in accessing
information, notification of class absences, problems students are
encountering in completing assignments, and other issues related to the
management of the course. All homework and study questions
responses should be directed to the instructor via the bulletin board..
The only exception to this is when the instructor contacts a student
relative to a particular learning or teaching issue, or comment.
Otherwise, when students have questions regarding the assignment or wish
to make a comment for the benefit of the class, they will be expected to
use the bulletin board designed for the class. Use the telephone for
personal communications, such as notification about missing the class,
or needing a specific appointment to discuss the class. It is important
for all students to adhere to this policy for communication and
consultation. Excessive direct communication with the instructor alone
(via telephone or e-mail) can tend to undercut useful class interaction,
and can overload the instructor with answering the same or common
questions repetitively. The instructor will also use the Lesson board to
post class information.
Weekly
Lesson Board
Instead of using a
Lesson board, this course makes use of the Angel software at FGCU to create
a set of discussion forums linked to each weekly course session. These discussion forums
are found under the "Lessons" tab on the Angel web site. A tutorial for
using the Weekly Lesson Board in Angel is found below. Understand
however that these weekly Lesson discussion forums are designed to house
the majority of your course work.
|
|
Weekly Lesson Submission Overview
Each week you will be required to
post your work under the Lessons
section of Angel. Angel can be found
on the home page of FGCU at the
following URL site:
http://elearning.fgcu.edu/angel/frameindex.htm
You will have to go to the above
site and log in using your student
username and ID. Thereafter you will
be directed to a page that lists all
of the Angel courses you are
enrolled in. Click on the
appropriate course and you will be
taken to the course's "Welcome"
page. To the left you will see a
vertical table with the following
options in it: (The links below are
all non-functional and are used only
for illustration).
Click
on the Lessons folder and you will
see the following:
Syllabus
 Calendar
 Lessons
From here, click on the class
session drop box where you are going
to leave your homework or other
class assignments. Once in a class
session drop box folder you will see
the following (see illustration
below). Simply put in the title of
your message (such as Discussion
Question Set 1), type a message and
make an attachment (Word document or
Rich Text Format Document Only).
Directions for attaching a document
are found below. Once your document
is attached, hit submit. Only the
instructor will be able to read your
message and read your attachment.
The "Session" folders are where you
will find your instructor leaving
messages or study material for you.
You are never to put your work in
the session folders. Moreover, only
work submitted in the drop box that
matches the session in which the
homework is assigned will be graded.
Consequently work for session 1 goes
into drop box 1, session 2 homework
goes into drop box 2 and so on. You are to only communicate with the
instructor in the drop box for the
session. Any other questions should
be directed to the instructor by
email. You should also regularly
check the Instructor Comments box
for additional instructor comments
and information.
Drop 1
Review: User Review,
Anonymous: No
Instructions:
Enter or paste your written
work and/or click
"Attachments" to upload your
files.
When you on the attachment button
and come to the following screen:
To upload a file, you click on the
"Browse" button and go into your
computer to the directory and file
you want to upload. Remember, all of
your work must be either in Word or
Rich Text Format, and you should
only use numbers and letters in the
titles of your files. Moreover, your
file titles should be short and you
should never use the # sign in the
title to a file.
Once the file is uploaded it will
appear in the "Uploaded Files" box.
Thereafter, all you do is click on
the "Finished" button to complete
posting of your work to the weekly
lesson. If there is a problem with
the file you have uploaded (for
instance you may have uploaded the
wrong file) then you can hit the
delete button to delete the file and
start the process again. |
|
|
|
Sessions
|
