The Milken Institute School of Public Health will offer a climate and health concentration for graduate students this fall housed under an interdisciplinary research institute that launched in September.
Officials said in a release that the climate and health concentration – part of Milken’s Climate and Health Institute – will prepare graduate students for careers in the climate field and teach students to assess climate change-related health risks, like asthma. The release states that rising global temperatures because of greenhouse gases have brought the need for climate-based actions that benefit global human health.
“Climate change has a profound impact on human health,” officials said in the release. “What we do about it also matters. The actions we take to mitigate long-term, global climate change would also improve health and livelihoods locally through clearer air, cleaner water, improved physical fitness, expanded natural environments for both recreation and ecosystem protection and reduced congestion and noise.”
Graduates who are already enrolled in GW’s online Master of Public Health program can enroll in the concentration in the fall, and residential students can enroll in courses within the concentration.
Master-level courses associated with the concentration include climate change courses like Sustainable Energy and the Environment and Global Climate Change and Air Pollution.
Officials said the concentration will teach graduates how to address health issues associated with global environmental changes and anthropogenic climate change – the human impact on Earth’s climate. The concentration also teaches graduate students to “manage diverse teams” that will evaluate government policies, urban planning, public engagement, corporate action and finance.