ENVH13002 - Environmental Health Risk Management

General Information

Unit Synopsis

This unit represents the capstone of your studies in environmental health. The content in this unit integrates the aspects of environmental health theory and practice covered within other environmental health units by focusing on current policy issues, strategies, tools and approaches.Using a range of real world environmental health scenarios, you will be challenged to apply your knowledge and skills to assess, manage and communicate the associated risks to public health. During residential school, you will develop your practical skills in risk assessment and management practices related to a range of contemporary and emerging environmental health issues in the field. Topics covered in this unit include environmental health policy making, health impact assessment, the use of decision support tools, strategic and operational management.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prereq: ENVH11001 Health & the Environment; ENVH12001 Food Safety; ENVH12002 Environmental Health Law; ENVH12003 Environmental Toxicology

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School Compulsory Residential School
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Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2024

Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Mixed Mode
Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Mixed Mode

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Portfolio 25%
2. Group Discussion 40%
3. Written Assessment 35%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 50% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: SUTE
Feedback
Students felt that there were too many group assessment tasks.
Recommendation
No change to the number of group tasks. These are intended to reflect the time limited and intense nature of emergent work in the environmental health profession and the need to be able to rapidly assemble and evaluate evidence to provide a resolution. Given this is a third year unit, three short group tasks is not excessive.
Action Taken
The group tasks remained in place.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
Guidance was required for assessment tasks 1 and 3.
Recommendation
Provide some early guidance on the group assessment task (task 1), although as a capstone unit the task should not be unduly scaffolded. Continue to offer tutorials for Task 3.
Action Taken
Some additional guidance was provided for the first group task and feedback for this task was somewhat more detailed than in past years.
Source: Observation, student emails, student misconduct report
Feedback
Some students were challenged by the requirement to work effectively as a team.
Recommendation
Provide some additional material and early activities to support effective teamwork. Introduce a process for reporting difficulties amongst team members from an early stage.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Assess the risks to public health relating to a range of environmental health issues
  2. Formulate strategies, using a variety of tools and approaches, to effectively manage contemporary and emerging environmental health hazards and issues
  3. Assess your own strengths and weaknesses, and those of others, when working in a team context
  4. Evaluate a variety of approaches to environmental health policy making

This unit relates to the following criteria for accreditation by Environmental Health Australia:

C1: Knowledge of written and verbal communication techniques and strategies suitable for diverse audiences, purposes and contexts.
C2: Knowledge of strategies to build collaboration, work in teams, mediate, educate, advocate, and influence outcomes and deal with difficult situations.
C3: Basic principles of reflective practice and self-development for effective communication.
E1: Understanding of the core principles, frameworks for and procedures involved in risk assessment for environmental health contexts.
E2: Critical evaluation of evidence underpinning environmental health risk assessment.
E3: Introduction to risk management principles and evaluation of risk management options.
L10: Knowledge of compliance options (legislative and non- legislative) including their strengths, limitations and legislative requirements.
L15: Introduction to key government strategies and intergovernmental agreements in the context of environmental health.
L16: Introduction to policy and program development and evaluation techniques.
M1: Introduction to decision support tools (e.g. risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis, etc.).
M3: Introduction to strategic and operational planning.
M4: Introduction to key government protocols in the context of environmental health
P3: Introduction to linkages between environment and health.
P4: Introduction to linkages between environment and health policies and programs.
P6: Introduction to environmentaland health impact assessment.
P8: Introduction to how environmental health principles are applied in policy development and decision making
R5: Problem solving using systems thinking and critical judgement.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Portfolio •
2 - Group Discussion • • •
3 - Written Assessment •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Communication • • •
2 - Problem Solving • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • •
5 - Team Work • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • • •
8 - Ethical practice • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Portfolio • • • • •
2 - Group Discussion • • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • • •