Environmental contexts
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Drawing on these insights, we present a more generalisable way of thinking about how environmental interventions work which could be used in future evaluation studies. These themes are inter-related but have rarely been considered together in the disparate literatures. By first separating out and then drawing together this material, we produced a synthesis that identified five high-level conceptual themes: one concerning outcomes (physical activity as a behaviour and a socially embedded practice), one concerning exposures (environmental interventions as structural changes) and three concerning how interventions bring about their effects (the importance of social and physical context (un) observable mechanisms linking interventions and changes in physical activity and interventions as events in complex systems). Our initial searches identified 2760 potential sources from fields including public health, sociology, behavioural science and transport, of which 104 were included.
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We extracted theoretical and conceptual material and used thematic analysis in an in-depth, configurative narrative approach to synthesis. We searched for editorials, commentaries, reviews, or primary qualitative or quantitative studies in multiple disciplines by electronic searches of key databases (MEDLINE and MEDLINE In-Process, Web of Science, Cochrane Reviews, ProQuest for dissertations, Health Evidence, EPPI-Centre, TRID and NICE) and snowballing. We aimed to advance the intervention research agenda by systematically searching for and synthesising the literature pertaining to these wider conceptual issues. The theoretical perspectives and conceptual issues discussed or used in evaluative studies and related literature may contribute to these inconsistencies. Thereby, this course provides the students with a multifaceted understanding of how the humanities' perspectives on the environment can contribute to create sustainable societies.Changing the physical environment is one way to promote physical activity and improve health, but evidence on intervention effectiveness is mixed. In order to analyze these relations, this course builds on theories and approaches in the field of environmental humanities. This includes a critical reflection on how places are constructed, and how this affects different groups in society. The student learns to apply environmental humanities' perspectives on environmental and sustainability challenges, among others, by referring to history of ideas, discursive analytical, ecocritical and environmental ethical arguments. The course examines how human frameworks of understanding, ways of life, and cultural expressions are shaped through the tensions between global and place-based perspectives on environmental and sustainability issues. The central theme of the course is the relation between people and places in the ongoing changes of environment and societies, which is reflected in the course literature and examinations.
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About the courseThe course aims to give the student a multi- and interdisciplinary introduction to central questions and traditions in the emerging research field of environmental humanities.