Environment Policy and Impact Assessment

The module encourages deeper understanding of the inputs to health impact assessment, such as primary epidemiological research, different risk factors related to environmental pollution and climate change, the importance of systematically reviewing the literature, quantitative health impact assessments, cost-benefit analysis and finally policy evaluation, and how all these affect health impact assessment design.

Air pollution is used as a key example risk factor, but others are also covered, such as extreme temperature, physical activity and noise. Environmental policies and interventions are also discussed, including a range of examples from Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and the London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to climate change policies toward a zero carbon UK and policies aiming to meet the WHO Air Quality Guidelines.

International issues such as the Global Burden of Disease study, household air pollution in developing countries and how global policies can be assessed through health impact assessments are also covered. The module includes practical sessions on lifetable analysis, as well as presentations providing a critique on health impact assessment papers.

Module Aims

1. Discuss and debate the general principles of health impact assessment (HIA) and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legal framework.
2. Critically evaluate methods to quantify the impacts of global environmental policies using emissions inventories.
3. Highlight key health impacts that can be affected by non-health policies using transport as an example.
4. Appreciate the complexity of the evidence behind inputs to HIA that is needed to design good quality HIA using air pollution as an example.
5. Debate the strengths and weaknesses of international approaches such as the Global Burden of Disease.
6. Interpret the results of health impact calculations and critique health impact assessment papers.

Module Leads

Dr Dimitris Evangelopoulos (Deputy Head of the ERG Air Pollution Epidemiology Team) 

Dr David Dajnak (Deputy Head of the ERG Modelling Team) are the Module co-leaders.

The module is also supported by a team from the Environmental Research Group with expertise in Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Environmental Policy.

Timetable

The module runs over five weeks.

It is offered to students enrolled in the MSc Epidemiology and Master of Public Health courses at Imperial College. Mornings typically include recorded or live online lectures sessions. Afternoons are more interactive with discussions, workshops, and case studies.

There are formative assessments such as paper presentations and quizzes, and students are expected to build a presentation week-by-week and present it at the end. The summative assessment of the module includes an open-book exam where students are asked to design a health impact assessment for a specific policy.

Comments from Previous Students

The students enjoy the module and find it very engaging. They particularly like the workshops and practicals, and the fact that these are directly related to the assessments. Students also appreciate the real-world relevance of the module content. Students’ feedback quotes from the 2024/25 academic year:

“The staffs are very passionate about their research and ensuring the students understand”

“I liked all the tutors, and I like that the content felt very relevant to the real world”

“One of my favourite classes, thank you!!”

“By far the best module on the MSc Epidemiology course”