Course unit details:
Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience
Unit code | HCRI77000 |
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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 | |
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Lectures | 20 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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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