MSc Global Health / Course details

Year of entry: 2025

Course unit details:
Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience

Course unit fact file
Unit code HCRI77000
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This module will explore the concepts of risk, vulnerability and resilience in the context of multi-risk environments and climate change. These core principles in disaster management will be analysed in applied contexts.  There will also be the opportunity to evaluate and create practical measures, such as risk matrices, qualitative surveys, data analysis and disaster risk management reports,

Risk is an important concept which straddles the social and natural sciences.  This module will seek to understand the theories behind risk and then look at practical measures using to assess hazard risk and the perception of it.  Vulnerability is a component of risk.  In this module you will review the key vulnerabilities but understand how these change in demographic / cultural settings.  There will be the opportunity to learn the tools used to assess vulnerability such as EVCAs.

Resilience building is a key component of the Sendai Framework and seeks to make countries and communities more able to live with risk.  This module identifies the key characteristics of resilience and seeks to appraise methods undertaken at national and local levels to improve resilience. 

This module will also consider the potential changes associated with different climate futures and will seek to understand, at an international scale, how we should be developing our mitigative and adaptive approaches.  The module will look at applied examples in the Caribbean and Iceland to assess approaches to National Disaster Risk Assessment works which will provide a basis for the assessment tasks.

Aims

  • This unit aims to develop a theoretical understanding of the risk, vulnerability, and resilience nexus in a disaster management context
  • To assess the application of risk, vulnerability and resilience in applied contexts
  • To identify approaches to measure and analyse risk vulnerability and resilience

Knowledge and understanding

  • Describe basic epidemiology practice
  • Compare and use of relative risk and attributable risk
  • Define risk factors and their effect on different health risks
  • Identify psychological limitations to assessing risk 

Intellectual skills

  • Undertake Health risk assessments
  • Perform Risk mitigation analysis

Practical skills

  • Assess risk factors for different locations
  • Develop mitigation plans according to identified risk factors

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Use persuasive writing
  • Apply risk communication for health threats

Employability skills

Other
¿ Use persuasive writing ¿ Apply risk communication for health threats

Assessment methods

Assessment Task Formative or Summative Weighting within unit
Creating a qualitative methodology of risk perception and vulnerability to an applied context Summative 30%
Disaster risk assessment report Summative 60%
Substantial contribution to discussion board Summative 10%

Feedback methods

 

Feedback method

Formative or Summative

Comments on contributions to discussion boards from peers and staff. Also, feedback and answering questions via email.

 

Formative

Written feedback on perception / vulnerability analysis and NDRA report.

 

Summative

 

Recommended reading

BONITA, R., BEAGLEHOLE, R. & KJELLSTRÖM, T. 2006. Basic epidemiology [Online]. World Health Organization. Available: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/43541/9241547073_eng.pdf;jsessionid=8900B4C800826140078D858B72C6FC52?sequence=1 [Accessed 11/9/ 2018].

LOPEZ, A. D., MATHERS, C. D., EZZATI, M., JAMISON, D. T. & MURRAY, C. J. 2006. Global burden of disease and risk factors [Online]. The World Bank. Available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11812/ [Accessed 11/9/ 2018].

TROCHIM, W. nd. Research Methods Knowledge Database [Online]. Available: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/ [Accessed 11/9/ 2018].

 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 20

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Martin Parham Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Please note that these units are intensive 8-week short courses, predominately independent-study, with no face-to-face learning

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