In Week Two, the lecture session focused on the global burden of disease. In seminar, you began working on Assignment One by exploring the topic of site analysis and conducting a mini site analysis of your own.

The sole required reading for this week is the World Health Organization’s 2016 overview of the evidence on urban greenspaces and health. Additional readings that might interest you include the brief report in Nature on the effect of urban environments on social stress processing, which includes some fascinating functional MRI images.

As we begin to delve more deeply into the concept of population health, how do you see your role in improving your own health and that of the people around you?

And as you begin to conduct your own site analysis efforts, what different approaches may be needed to address the elements of site analysis we brainstormed together? Are there any questions you’d like to answer but face obstacles in doing so? 

In Week One, the lecture session introduced the concept of healthy planet, healthy people, while seminar provided an introduction to urban greenspaces and an overview of the first assignment.

Readings comprised the core content in Outside Our Doors and the recommended reading in GEO-6 Assessment for the pan-European region.

Your feedback on any or all of these components of the first week of the course is welcome below!