Ih5xx: Natural Resources, Health, and Development Draft

The course examines natural resource issues affecting developing countries, and explores the impacts on communities, households, their decisions, and their health. Key resource use issues include water use (drinking, sanitation, and irrigation), agriculture (intensification, pesticide use, and land degradation), fuel wood scarcity, deforestation, conservation, and mining. For each of these issues, discussions and readings address: 1) global and regional patterns in resource use, 2) ecological processes, 3) household and community responses and resource use decisions, and 4) the influence of these factors on human health. Examples of topics covered include: deforestation and vector-borne disease, malaria and agriculture, water scarcity and quality. Topics are addressed in an interdisciplinary context by examining the interactions between environmental processes, disease ecology, household resource allocation decisions, and other social factors. Related policy issues are also discussed. Readings and exercises examine these issues in a wide range of settings.