Admission requirements
This course is open for students of the MSc Governance of Sustainability.
Description
It took humanity two million years to create a population of one billion people. The next billion lasted only 120 years and the next billion only 35 years. It is not surprising that this population explosion has had a huge impact on the environment and the ecology of the landscape. A hot topic for national and local governments is the promotion of a healthy living environment for people, defined as safe and attractive, inviting to interact with each other, promoting healthy behavior and pleasant to live in. In other words: a healthy landscape.
In this capita selecta we will introduce the concept of the so-called ‘pathogenic landscapes’ and focus on the interactions between land, people, disease vectors, and their animal hosts. With many people in one place, pathogens can easily and permanently circulate, and quickly jump between livestock, wildlife and humans.
Moreover, vectors and vermins, such as mosquitoes and rodents, can simply settle in the environments that humans create.
In this capita selecta we will address the topic of a healthy living environment and the choices that we need to make in spatial planning to achieve the best balance between the societal demands in housing, climate adaptation, biodiversity and well-being of the inhabitants and keeping. By using a specific aspect, namely vector borne diseases (such as Lyme disease, malaria, dengue), we will guide you along the pitfalls of this complicated, yet highly insightful problem. We will use insights from tropical countries to show that there is nothing simple about control of vector borne diseases.
Furthermore, we explore different theoretical perspectives to understand complex socio-ecological problems and how to tackle them through decision tools and governance strategies.
Course objectives
After this course students will be able to:
Understand how humans (often unwillingly) promote disease vectors in their own environment
Distinguish between complex and complicated issues
Identify categories of causal and functional relations underlying progress or achievement of goals and targets. Read: positive interactions (“enabling, reinforcing, indivisible, and interactions characterized by trade-offs (constraining, counteracting, canceling).
Understand and use the concepts of planetary health, and how this differs from One Health and EcoHealth
Report comprehensively, convincingly and critically;
Demonstrate skills working collaboratively with peers and planning.
Timetable
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
By lectures on the background of the ecology of vector borne disease and public health, invited lectures by a range of specialists in the field, feedback sessions, workshops, excursions, discussion and self-study. The lectures and the presentations at the end of the course are compulsory to attend. It will not be possible to follow the lectures online.
Assessment method
Duo paper on the disease ecology of an (emerging) vector borne disease of choice, and the societal handling perspective (50%)
Individual peer review of a duo paper (15%)
Group work on video or podcast + presentation (35%)
Reading list
Literature for this course will primarily exist of scientific peer-reviewed papers from mono-disciplinary and transdisciplinary scientific journals, supplemented with book chapters, occasional policy document, video and podcasts.
All required readings and lectures must be studied for the written exam.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Coordinators: Dr. Marieta Braks and dr. Maarten Schrama
Remarks
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.