Laurea magistrale in Biologia dell'Ambiente

The course aims to provide students with the general concepts of Environmental Health and Toxicology, particularly referred to the relationship between the quality of the living environment and human health. These issues will be considered starting from the mechanisms of toxicity of xenobiotics in the environment and analyzing, retrospectively and prospectively, the environmental items and their effect on human health, promoting the determinants of health and, at the same time, preventing the determinants of disease. Thus, particular attention will be dedicated to the main experimental methods for the characterization of a toxicological activity and the study of the environmental and biological man. This allows the qualitative and quantitative understanding of the interaction environment - health.

The module of ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS provides basic tools for the understanding the economic aspects of environmental issues with reference to the human environment, both natural, antropic, and urban.

Students will be able to understand the economic reasons underlying
environmental issues, and to evaluate the different alternatives as to the
needed interventions

The course is divided into two parts. The part of environmental health and epidemiology and the part of environmental economics.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND EPIDEMIOLOGY
Unit 1. Definition and content of environmental health. The relationship between man and environment: history and current situation. The main effects resulting from exposure to pollutants vehiculated by the different environmental matrices. The study of associations between exposure to pollutants and biological responses. The environmental prevention strategies.
Unit 2. Environmental health and epidemiology. History, definitions and topics of epidemiology. From Ippocrate to molecular epidemiology. The study of environment and health relationship through epidemiological method. Frequency and distribution of health and disease determinants in populations. “Populations” and different levels of organization: bacteria, metabolites, cellular organs, cells, organs and systems, individual characteristics
Unit 3. The population at risk: ratio, proportion, rate. Rates: Crude, specific, standardized. Morbidity, mortality, prevalence, incidence and average duration of the disease.
Unit 4. The cause in epidemiology, dependent and independent variables, causality: environmental applications. The comparison and the relationships between numerical populations. Measures of risk and causal relationships. The associations: the temporal relationship, biological plausibility, the strength or the degree of associations, magnitude, dose response, the confounding factors.
Unit 5. The retrospective or case-control studies and prospective or cohort studies. Examples and applications. Observational studies (cross sectional and longitudinal) and experimental studies on populations. Screening: specificity and sensitivity of a test. Examples and applications.
BIOMARKERS
Biological monitoring for human health study. tests procedures: sampling, transport and storage, preparation and processing of environmental samples. Health significance of biomonitoring in environment and ecotoxicology. Mutagenicity and genotoxicity, cytotoxicity; estrogenicity. Choice of biomarkers and epidemiological applications. Human variables, environmental and individual characteristics of biomarkers. Choice of matrix depending on half-life, invasiveness, routes of exposure, metabolisms and epidemiological significance. The relationship between complexity and specificity of biomarkers. Biomarkers of exposure, internal dose and biological effective dose (given molecular protein and DNA). Biomarker of early biological effect (mutations, SCE, HPRT, micronuclei, oncogenes, chromosomal aberrations ...). Biomarker of effect/disease (structural or functional abnormalities, clinical disease) and biomarkers of susceptibility, genetic polymorphisms.
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMY
Basic concepts for economic analysis of environmental issues. Market as an efficient resource allocation mechanism. Market failures: public goods, externalities, open access resources. Externalities. Externalities as a reason for not reaching a social optimum. Optimal level of externalities. Policy interventions on externalities: market, standards, taxes, subsidies, marketable permits. Public goods. Valuation methods of the benefits of public goods.