Professional/Short course Housing and Healthy Neighbourhoods

Content

The online course syllabus typically covers the following:

• The various forms of historical and contemporary building construction techniques; the diagnosis and remediation of common housing defects of public health significance.
• The relationship between housing and health: accepted and emerging evidence; social inequalities and their influence on housing risk factors and health; housing condition variance geographically and across tenures;
• Area deprivation and social exclusion: Causes of neighbourhood decline (social, economic, government policies); Indices of deprivation; review of the efficacy of government regeneration policies past and present; legal basis for neighbourhood renewal; partnership working and community involvement in renewal/regeneration activities.
• Application of risk assessment techniques in characterising the health and safety risks associated with housing of varying construction types, age, tenure and occupancy; utilisation of appropriate statutory guidance documents in quantifying risk; critical awareness of the uncertainties associated with risk assessment methodologies.
• Application of housing law in improving housing conditions: Knowledge and application of primary and secondary legislation; the utilisation of statutory guidance to inform and support decision making; statutory duties and powers; the efficacy of housing legislation in improving housing conditions and protecting public health.
• Consideration of the potential for elevated health and safety risks associated with multi-occupied housing in relation to matters such as fire, overcrowding and shared amenities; evaluation of the strategies and interventions available to eliminate/mitigate risk.
• Consideration of the features of sustainable housing and communities: Carbon emissions and contributions to climate change; energy efficient housing; land use planning; transport planning; healthy environments; flooding; water supply and demand.

Learning and Teaching

Teaching is delivered in the form of up to 10 campus lectures. Seminars, formative assessments and other forms of interactive activities will use tools quizzes and class room discussions and work based learning scenarios including practice based activities.

Essential, indicative and supplementary online learning materials and resources are also provided via with links to online library resources and key literature.

Study time

This module utilises a variety of learning methods such as asynchronous online activities (including lectures, reading, quizzes, videos) and synchronous tutorials (seminars/discussions).

Progress through the module is managed through time-dependent release of online resources to ensure structured progression through the learning materials and the synchronous activities promote development of the student-tutor relationship and encourage a cohort identity in addition to supporting core learning. Approximately 30 hours of directed study (e.g. online lectures, seminars, etc) are delivered via Blackboard.

Assessment

The assessment is a 30 minute pre-recorded presentation, the presentation should cover three core areas and it is suggested you spend 10 minutes on each area:

• an HHSRS risk assessment
• an evaluation of an housing intervention
• critical reflections of your learning on the housing module.

Full details can be found in the module handbook and on the module's Blackboard site.