HORIZON INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS SITE

Tufts University's first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), The Biology of Water and Health (Part 1), is currently available for registration on the edX platform: http://tinyurl.com/tuftswatermooc.  The course starts on November 4, 2014.  

Taught by Tufts professors Jeffrey K. Griffiths, Public Health and Community Medicine and David M. Gute, Civil and Environmental Engineering, this course is a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to critical water and water-related health challenges across the globe.

... dans le contrôle de l’épidémie de choléra en Haïti: Photograph courtesy of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), www.msf.ch

The course examines critical water-related issues through a global and interdisciplinary lens.

Participants will explore connections between water and human health, including the influence of waterborne pathogens on human and environmental health and the central role of sanitation and hygiene in preserving health.

The course focuses on the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene to maternal and child nutrition and growth, and encourages participants to explore social, economic, and behavioral dimensions in a global, multi-dimensional context.

Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions and Preventive Measures: Published by Wiley-Blackwell in collaboration with Horizon InternationalThe curriculum includes several optional chapters from “Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions and Preventive Measures, of which Professor Griffiths is one of its 59 authors.

The book, with accompanying 4-hours of multimedia DVDs, is a Wiley-Blackwell collaboration with Horizon International, for which Horizon’s head, Janine M. H. Selendy, is Editor.

Tufts has arranged a service for students to purchase these optional chapters through SIPX.  There is a location-based sliding scale for the purchase of each chapter ranging from around $4/chapter to no cost.  The reduced fee is based on the list of countries receiving development aid from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 

Any student from one of the countries which receives official development assistance will be able to purchase the chapters at either half price or for no cost.  When a student signs up to purchase these chapters, the location of the student will be noted and the student will be charged appropriately.   If there are any problems there is a customer support link on the page.

The chapters from this book are:

Chapter 1: “Tackling the Water Crisis: A Continuing Need to Address Spatial and Social Equity” by Jay Graham, PhD, Assistant Professor, Director of the MPH in Global Environmental Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University.

Chapter 3: “Water and Health: The Demographic Background,” by Robert Wyman, PhD, Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University.

Chapter 6: “Malnutrition and Undernutrition,” by Professor Griffiths.

Chapter 24: “Anthropogenic Sources of Water Pollution: Parts 1,” co-authored by Kerry Shannon, MPH, DrPH/MD Candidate, International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) and Robert S. Lawrence, M.D., Founder and Former Director Center for a Livable Future, JHSPH, and Part 2 by M. Danielle McDonald, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Animal Physiology, Molecular Biology, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Marine Biology and Fisheries, Miller School of Medicine and Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami.

Chapter 25: “The Hudson River: A Case Study of PCB Contamination,” co-authored by David O. Carpenter, M.D., Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, State University at Albany, Rensselaer, New York, and Gretchen Welfinger-Smith, M.S., formerly also with the Institute for Health and the Environment.

 To learn more and register please go to:

http://tinyurl.com/tuftswatermooc

About the professors: Course Staff

Jeffrey K. Griffiths, M.D.

Jeffrey K. Griffiths is Professor of Public Health and of Medicine at Tufts University. He holds joint appointments in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the School of Engineering and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

He formerly led the programs in Public Health at Tufts and is now the Director of the USAID Feed the Future Nutrition Innovation Lab for Africa. By training he is an infectious diseases physician. He has worked internationally on waterborne diseases and other water-related health issues for more than thirty years, and served as Chair of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water Committee.

His research interests include linkages between agriculture, nutrition, and health, and the biology of the waterborne parasite Cryptosporidium.

His policy interests relate to water, and the alleviation of poverty and improvement of health in poor populations.

He received his AB from Harvard College, his MPH&TM from Tulane University, and his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He then completed residencies and postdoctoral training at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Harvard, and Tufts. Dr. Griffiths and Dr. Gute have jointly taught this course for more than a dozen years.
 

David M. Gute, Ph.D.

David M. Gute is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine as well as at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. He directs a M.S./Ph.D. program in Environmental Health and has served as the Academic Director of the Tufts in Talloires program located in the Haute Savoie, France.

Prior to joining the Tufts faculty Dr. Gute served as an Assistant Commissioner responsible for personal and environmental disease risk factor reductions with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and as an Epidemiologist with the Rhode Island Department of Health. He has served as a consultant for a number of organizations including the World Health Organization and AcademyHealth.

He is interested and committed to offering environmental and public health training in a variety of settings including international venues, having lead and co-directed training programs in Brazil and the Philippines.

Dr. Gute received his Ph.D. and M.P.H. from Yale University. Dr. Gute is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology.

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