Healthy Environments and Sustainability in the EU | EPH 1024
Exam outline: 5 open-ended questions (you answer 4) of five key topics → max 400 words
Theme 1. Systems Thinking and Sustainability (Task 1,3,4)
Theme 2. Perspectives on Sustainability (Task 4,6)
Theme 3. Biodiversity, ecosystem services, agriculture, prospecting food (Task 5,8,9)
Theme 4. Economy, inequality, health, sustainable employability (Task 11-12)
Theme 5. Environments, urbanisation, climate change (Task 2-3-6-7)
*Task 10 is missing → cover briefly but probably no detail needed
Key literature: https://canvas.maastrichtuniversity.nl/courses/8864/files/1505839?module_item_id=287481
Steps for studying:
1. Divide studying into the themes
2. Review all lectures relevant to the themes and make succinct notes
3. Review all relevant tasks relevant to the themes
a. Read and make notes of the syllabus (the actual task)
b. Do all required readings and make succinct notes
c. Look at the official learning goals and answer them
d. Compare to notes made in the tutorial
4. Make sure to relate all findings to systems thinking and theory → try to find detailed
and uncommon details in notes to stand out to get higher in the curve
Course description and goals: module focuses on the environment as a determinant of
health and relating it to health and sustainability in a European context
● Addresses complex health impacts of environmental degradation and sustainability
● Looks at creative solutions cities, workplaces and farmland are using for health
● One Health, Planetary Health, Healthy cities and HiAP as well as SDGs
● Factors like climate change, biodiversity loss and land use and their implications
● Complex systems theory approach = foundational theoretical framework of course
● European processes and policies: Parma Act, 20-20-20 EU targets, WHO Healthy
City Network, EU Health & Safety at the Workplace
● Main principles and themes: systems thinking, socio-ecological systems,
sustainable development, environmental inequality, precautionary principle,
urbanisation, climate change, biodiversity, sustainable food production, sustainable
employability, health impact analysis, and European policy and governance
, Theme 1. Systems Thinking and Sustainability
Lecture: Introduction (Beumers, C)
System: not just a collection of things but an interconnected set of elements coherently
organised in a way that achieves something (Meadows) → contains three things:
1. Elements
2. Interconnections
3. A function of purpose
Types of systems:
Simple system: Complicated system:
known knowns → specific outcomes are known unknowns → outcomes can be
expected → e.g.) following a recipe to cook predicted but not certain → manufacturing a
a specific meal new product
Chaotic system: Complex system:
unknowables → outcomes are impossible unknown unknown → outcomes will often
to predict → often related to crises be different and hard to predict → raising a
child
Systemic causes of the global sustainability problem:
● Fossil fuel dependency → environmental problem?
● Runaway global capitalist system → economic problem?
● Lack of human-nature connection → cultural or empathetic problem?
Chaos theory: systems are non-linear and highly complex → therefore predictions of
systems are unreliable and impossible
● Chaos: doom and gloom → a lack of certainty, logical linear progression, order and
control → pessimism → relates to crisis and collapse of systems
● Complexity: window of opportunity → new emerging patterns and possibilities
through non-linear change → optimism → relates to evolving systems
,Diagram of Cultural Theory - Douglas and Wildavsky’s grid typologies:
● Grid: the higher the gird the higher individual choice is based on position in society
● Group: the highest the group the greater the solidarity is amongst a society
SCLs in this course:
● Statistics
● Epidemiology
● Philosophy of Public Health
● Policy Advocacy
Assignments:
● Final Course Exam (60%)
● Group assignment 1 (20%)
● Group assignment 2 (20%)
, Lecture: Complex Adaptive Systems and Sustainability (Beumer, C):
Anthropocene: humans have changed the way the world works → it is now necessary for
us humans to change how we think about our power within the world
● Great acceleration: exponential surge in socioeconomic and earth system trends
● Planetary boundaries: concept where Earth system processes have environmental
boundaries → transgressing a boundary could have severe consequences
● Doughnut economy (Raworth): an economic model that brings together economic
growth with increased quality of life → linked to SDGs
Complexity and change dynamics:
● Newtonian Science / Mode 1 / Positivism / Order
○ Based on reductionism (complex phenomena can be explained by underlying
simpler phenomena), linear causality and looks at single systems/elements
○ There is high predictiveness and high certainty → relies on order
○ Mono-disciplinary explanations (only one academic discipline listened to)
○ Chaos is an anomaly → should be avoided
● Emergence: ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ → interactions of individual
elements create something more than these individual elements on their own
● System Science / Mode 2 / STS / Complexity
○ Looks at connections, relations, and nested systems between many elements
○ Feedback loops and interactions of systems are considered
○ Scenarios instead of predictions are considered
○ Multi-disciplinary explanations (several disciplines are used for information)
○ Emphasis on holism (all aspects considered), exploration, and resilience
○ Chaos and uncertainty are accepted
Resilience within a system: a dynamic equilibrium → ability for a system to return to its
original state after being disturbed
● Diversity and connectivity → key components to a resilient system: there should be
robust relationships in a system but interconnection must remain at an optimal level
● Entropy: refers to increased disorder
● Closed system: do not exist outside laboratory settings → overtime entropy will not
increase in an isolated system
● Open system: characterised by feedbacks → entropy in open systems leads to new
order → energy dissipates from one system to another and new systems emerge
