MSc International Disaster Management / Course details

Healthcare relies upon the circulation of goods, people, and information. What happens when such circulations are disrupted by climate change? Focusing on healthcare, this research-led course offers an interdisciplinary entry point to understanding climate change impacts. We will explore the cascading global consequences of severe weather on vital mobilities, that is, movements of goods, people, and information that impact life chances. There is a pressing need to understand the impacts of climate change on healthcare and emergency services. Climate change poses risks to human health, hospitals, and health services. Especially significant are the acquisition of medical supplies during extreme weather events. Drawing on concepts of vital mobilities, infrastructure disruption, and mobility justice, students will address a critical gap in social scientific knowledge about global medical supply chains and their vulnerability to climate change, theorising vital mobilities and identifying adaptation measures.

• Understand the complexity of healthcare delivery and climate change impacts, with a focus on movements of goods, people, and information
• Understand the complex and extensive journeys of medical supplies from point of manufacture to point of care
• Understand priorities, innovations, trends, and tensions at play in climate change response and healthcare provision
• Understand what interventions and adaptations are necessary, possible, and appropriate
• Understand the concepts of vital mobilities, infrastructure disruption, and mobility justice, including definition and applications
• Gain exposure to a range of methods used in researching climate change impacts, mitigation, and adaptation 
• Understand how healthcare provision and its vulnerabilities can be understood and represented
• Develop research, analysis, and communication skills based on academic and non-academic sources as demonstrated through three assessments

Week 1: Vital Mobilities Delivering Healthcare in the Anthropocene

Week 2: Climate Crisis and Health Impacts Heat, drought, stress

Week 3: Goods: Blood, Saline, Oxygen Medical Supply Chains

Week 4: Goods: Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceutical Production in the Global South

Week 5: People: Patients Evacuating Intensive Care Units

Week 6: People: Humanitarian Workers Aid Workers in Climate Change Futures

Week 7: Information: Medical Records Medical Records in Sudden Onset Disasters

Week 8: Energy: Electricity Disaster Mutual Assistance in Electricity Sector

Week 9: Vital Immobilities: Coronavirus Containing Viral Mobility

Week 10: Looking Forward Delivering Healthcare in the Anthropocene

Week 11: Review Question and Answer Drop-In

This research-led graduate course will inspire and support students to undertake their own research projects, possibly contributing to a graduate student publication. Students are encouraged to develop their own theoretical and applied understanding through guided individual reading, creative project, and research essay.

Creative projects each week

• Learn theories and concepts related to climate change, healthcare, and mobility, including definition and application, namely: vital mobilities, infrastructure disruption, and mobility justice
• Develop a critical understanding of the (im)mobilities of people, goods, and information exacerbated by climate change
• Develop understanding of different disasters (e.g. slow versus fast onset, high versus low profile), and the representation of their impacts
• Develop and assess strategies for increasing healthcare access in the context of disruption

• Critically interrogate academic and non-academic sources on climate change, healthcare, and mobility
• Understand and apply key theoretical concepts including vital mobilities, infrastructure disruption, and mobility justice
• Understand the role of climate change as exacerbating pre-exiting threats and vulnerabilities
• Develop, articulate, and sustain logical, structured and reasoned arguments in both written, oral, and visual contexts

• Understand the many facets of climate change, healthcare, and mobility and use this to develop and assess appropriate humanitarian interventions in future crises
• Develop a creative project to inform the general public of links between climate change, healthcare, and mobility
• Write a critical essay demonstrating research skills
• Present essay and creative project as a work in progress, demonstrating oral communication skills and reflexivity in the research process
• Present final creative project to class

• Develop a creative project to communicate academic knowledge to a wider audience
• Develop specialist knowledge in the areas of climate change and healthcare applicable to future careers
• Develop public speaking skills
• Develop sensitivity for the complex issues facing individuals and communities confronted by climate change-related disruption

Adey, P. 2016. Emergency mobilities. Mobilities 11(1): 32-48.

Collier, S. and A. Lakoff. 2014. Vital Systems Security: Reflexive Biopolitics and the Government of Emergency. Theory Culture & Society. 32(2): 19-51.

Graham, S. (Ed.) 2010. Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructure Fails. New York: Routledge.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change. 2014. Human health: impacts, adaptation, and co-benefits. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Redfield, P. 2016. Doctors Without Borders and the Global Emergency. Vital Signs: Medical Anthropology in the 21st Century, L. Manderson, A. Hardon and E. Cartwright, eds. NY: Routledge, 359-363.

Redfield, P. 2014. Medical Vulnerability, or Where There Is No Kit. Limn. 5.

Sheller, M. 2019. Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. London: Verso.

Sodero, S. and R. Rackham. 2020. Vital Mobilities. Chapter In: Handbook on Methods and Applications for Mobilities Research. Edward Elgar