Launching ‘An Introduction to Ecological Health’; a learning course
Thursday 26th February
Today we launch the ‘Introduction to Ecological Health’ online learning course.
The purpose of this course is to support community leaders, organisers and everyday folx to work towards understanding how health outcomes result from our interactions with the natural, built, social, economic and political environments around us.
A key principle of Centric Lab is to remove barriers to knowledge. This course represents a commitment to that by bringing together a wide range of learnings we have amassed over the years into an accessible and informative learning journey.
Designed across four learning modules the course introduces learners to a range of topics. There's an opportunity to learn about how chronic stress and its relationship to the built environment, and how to use data to support advocacy, and how determinants of health frameworks help think to analyse how systems behave.
Module 1 course offers framings of health that are rooted in social justice, intersectionality, and an ecological model of health.
Module 2 deepens learnings from Module 1 by exploring how factors such as gender and racial discrimination influence health outcomes and how factors such as environmental justice burden some communities more than others.
Module 3 introduces determinants of health theory and analysis, inviting you to explore the connected systems that influence our health.
Module 4 is a step-by-step guide to putting this learned knowledge into action by creating a Community Health Impact Assessment - a practical approach to systematically judge the potential health effects of a policy, strategy, plan, programme or project on a community, particularly on vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.
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To increase knowledge on health and how it is shaped by the habitats we live, work, and play in.
To develop a scientific understanding of health and its relation to stress caused by the urban experience.
To underpin advocacy work with a scientific and justice lens.
To understand how structural determinants around us from laws, policies, and regulations come together to create systems of ill-health.
To develop the skills to create a Community Health Impact Assessment for your people, by your people.
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A curious learner interested in knowing more about health and the places they live
Anyone looking to develop a robust methodology to improve community health at the systemic level.
Community organisers and leaders looking for institutionally recognised tools and methods to incorporate lived experience knowledge into civic and policy action.
People and organisations looking to evaluate the impacts of a potential intervention, event, or policy change on a community.
People who are ready to commit time to learning.
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You are organised in that there are members of your community that spend time observing, listening, engaging and advocating around the conditions that you are collectively experiencing.
Your community is facing ongoing or imminent challenges to your lived environment, for example property or infrastructure demolition or development, changes in land use and pollution, to name a few.
You are invested in baselining your community’s health to increase awareness and competence for future advocacy. You do not need to be in the midst of an active challenge to walk this process as it serves your community long term to have this evidence base.
If you are not in an organised community, but are curious or wanting to begin this process, Modules 1 & 2 sets the scene and context of urban health and is a great start to understanding the terrain.
Modules 3 & 4 are targeted at organised groups looking at analysing and acting on the systems around them.
Feel free to go as far as is relevant to your learning and organising.
Centric Lab Co-Director Josh Artus says:
This course is an important part of our commitment to knowledge mobility. One day we’ll hopefully do ourselves out of a job by ensuring that everyone has the access to the information they need to tackle the root causes of health inequities and build culturally competent healing futures, this course helps in that theory of change.
Participants feedback from an earlier version of the course:
“The course was like a mini masters: the resources superb and the learning so wide ranging”
“The way that learning was linked to opportunities to put learning into practice and real case studies was brilliant”
“I was able to think about the impact of culture and superdiversity on health”
Lastly, we’d like to thank all the people who have made this course possible. From scientists such as Sarah Aliko, PhD, Elahi Hossain, PhD, and Marie Müller PhD who worked within the lab exploring the science of health in an ecological framing, to collaborators such as Civic Square for demonstrating the importance of learning journeys.