Environmental Health in Communities Certificate for Online MPH Students

The Environmental Health in Communities-A Focus on Environmental Racism certificate program provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to work with vulnerable and marginalized entities and/or communities facing environmental health disparities.

Historical inequities faced by vulnerable communities due to environmental racism influence their exposures to environmental hazards compounded by other stressors. This certificate focuses on the environmental hazard exposures to communities and the impact of these exposures on human health. The cumulative exposures faced by these communities will be contextualized through the lens of environmental racism. Curriculum will focus on the nature, effects and extent of environmental exposures and their impacts on human health, the mitigation and management of exposures, and how risk to these exposures is assessed and managed.

To understand environmental health, and be able to address some of these issues, we have to talk about environmental racism - it gives context to what we're seeing in communities today.

Simone Charles, Clinical Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences

The work in this certificate program emphasizes understanding the nature and extent of environmental exposures – chemical and biological - made more considerable by environmental racism, impacts of these exposures on health and wellbeing, and management of these exposures for vulnerable communities in the Great Lakes Region. 

Gain the fundamental skills needed to protect the health of diverse communities, promote social and environmental justice, and understand the role of race and environmental racism in propagating and perpetuating environmental health disparities. Build expertise in the foundational environmental and occupational skill sets of exposure science, toxicology, infectious disease and emergency response, and risk management in this certificate program. 

Simone Charles, clinical assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences, is the faculty lead for the Public Health and Environmental Sustainability certificate program. In the following video, Charles shares what students can expect to gain from this certificate program and offers her insights on the importance of the skills they’ll develop.

Eligibility

Must be an enrolled graduate student in the Population and Health Sciences online Master of Public Health degree program.

Required Courses for Certificate Completion:

Learn more about pursuing a certificate in the Population and Health Sciences online program.

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