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MSc Climate Change & Planetary Health (pre-course info)

General welcome

We are very excited to welcome you to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and – in particular – to the MSc Climate Change and Planetary Health (CCPH). We, Pauline Paterson, Emma Hutchinson and Pauline Scheelbeek, are your Programme Directors, so you will be seeing a lot of us in the year(s) to come! We will see each other in Welcome Week (22nd–26th September).

A few of you have got in touch asking us about specific preparations for the year, so we have created a list of a few things to think about between now and September:

  • Have a look at our reading list: below you will find the reading list for term 1, which will feature some core literature in the field of CC&PH. You are, of course, not expected to have read all of this before commencing the course, but it might be helpful to have a scan through, so you have a better idea of some of the main concepts in CC&PH. You will be able to access the content on the reading list through the LSHTM library when you join in September.
     
  • Have a look at the course structure. For part-time students this might also help with planning your year, and identifying the courses that you would like to take in year. For our online intensive students, here is the course structure.
     
  • Contact us if there are any questions or queries that you want to discuss with us prior to starting the course.

Whilst we have an amazing MSc programme lined up for you, we are of course keen to learn from and with you this year. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any tips, suggestions, complaints etc, that could make your year with us even better.

We are looking forward to meeting you and starting the CCPH journey with you very soon!

With kind regards,

Pauline Paterson, Emma Hutchinson and Pauline Scheelbeek
Co-Programme Directors of the MSc Climate Change & Planetary Health

Welcome Week

View your Welcome Week 2025 timetable here.

Your first week at LSHTM will be the Welcome Week, in which you will be introduced to studying at LSHTM. You will receive lots of information about the School, the MSc Climate Change & Planetary Health and meet the Programme Directors, lecturers and tutors on the course. Furthermore, you will be introduced to each other. The week will also provide opportunities to follow various learning and study skills sessions.

Personal tutors

At LSHTM, each of our students will be allocated a personal tutor: this is a friendly academic with whom you can discuss your module options and progress and is your first point of contact for any other issues that may arise during the year. To facilitate the allocations of tutors, please complete the following questions and email them to the Programme Directors Pauline and Emma by emailing [email protected].

  1. What is you first name?
  2. What is your last name?
  3. What name do you prefer to be called by?
  4. What is the pronunciation of your preferred name? (e.g. Rachel = ray-tchel, Chido = Chee-do, Deda= day-da.
    1. You can use this website to help find the phonetic spelling (pronunciation)
  5. What country do you currently live in?
  6. What countries have you previously lived and/or worked in?
  7. What is your nationality?
  8. What degree(s) have you completed prior to starting the MSc CCPH at LSHTM?
  9. What is your background in Climate Change & Planetary Health?
  10. Do you already know what field you would like to work in once graduated from LSHTM? If, so what field would this be?
  11. Do you already have a topic in mind for your thesis project? If so, what would this be?
  12. Would you be more comfortable with a male or a female tutor, or do you have no preference?

  13. Are you happy for LSHTM and/or UGSPH staff to contact you through your personal email address during or after your studies?

    This contact can be to help us provide you with support for access issues or for evaluation of the MSc and its impact. We may also reach out to you for networking opportunities specific to the MSc. 
    You will be able to withdraw your consent at any time by emailing [email protected]. If you are happy to be contacted; please provide your personal email address below

  14. Would you willing to share a photo of yourself to share on the MSc intranet (Moodle page) with current MSc CCPH students and staff? If so, please share a photo.
  15. Is there anything else you think might be useful to know regarding your tutor allocation?
Term 1 & 2 modules and timetable

Term 1

Each module runs on the same day of the week for 10 weeks

Full-time students take six modules (10 credits each)

 MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
AMBasic Statistics for Public Health & PolicyBasic EpidemiologyEnvironment, Health & Sustainable DevelopmentFundamentals of Climate Change & Planetary Health 
PM Issues in Public HealthHealth Policy, Process & PowerPrinciples of Social ResearchMethods in Climate Change & Planetary Health

Term 2

C1 (Mon - Wed morning) and C2 (Wed afternoon-Fri) for 5 weeks then D1 and D2 for the next 5 weeks.

Full-time students take four modules (15 credits each)

C1 slot

  • Research Design & Analysis
  • Study Design: Writing a Study Proposal

C2 slot

  • Health Systems
  • Statistical Methods in Epidemiology
  • Population, Poverty & Environment

D1 slot

  • Planetary Health Research in Practice 

D2 slot

  • Environmental Epidemiology 

 

Modules in bold are compulsory for on campus students.

Modules in italics are compulsory for online intensive students.

Reading list

Core textbook:

Haines A and Frumkin F (2021). Planetary Health: Safeguarding human health and the environment in the anthropocene. Cambridge University Press
 

Recommended reading on various topics in Planetary Health (in alphabetical order):

Burrows and Kinney. Exploring the Climate Change, Migration and Conflict Nexus. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph13040443 

Dasandi, Niheer, et al. "Engagement with health in national climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement: a global mixed-methods analysis of the nationally determined contributions." The Lancet Planetary Health 5.2 (2021): e93-e101.  

Jägermeyr, J., Müller, C., Ruane, A.C. et al. Climate impacts on global agriculture emerge earlier in new generation of climate and crop models. Nat Food 2, 873–885 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00400-y 

Jones R, Reid P and Macmillan A (2022). “Navigating fundamental tensions towards a decolonial relational vision of planetary health”. Lancet Planetary Health 6(10): e834-e841. 

Lelieveld, K. Klingmüller, A. Pozzer, R. T. Burnett, A. Haines, and V. Ramanathan. Effects of fossil fuel and total anthropogenic emission removal on public health and climate. PNAS, 25 March 2019. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1819989116 

Manisalidis, I., Stavropoulou, E., Stavropoulos, A. & Bezirtzoglou, E. Environmental and Health Impacts of Air Pollution: A Review. Frontiers in Public Health 8, (2020). 

Mazhin SA, Khankeh H, Farrokhi M, Aminizadeh M, Poursadeqiyan M. Migration health crisis associated with climate change: A systematic review. J Educ Health Promot. 2020 Apr 28;9:97. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_4_20. PMID: 32509905; PMCID: PMC7271932

Moysés SJ, Soares RC. Planetary health in the Anthropocene. Health Promot Int. 2019 Mar 1;34(Supplement_1):i28-i36. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daz012. PMID: 30753440.

Nemet, Gregory F., Tracey Holloway, and Paul Meier. "Implications of incorporating air-quality co-benefits into climate change policymaking." Environmental Research Letters 5.1 (2010): 014007. 

Redvers N, Celidwen Y, Schultz C, Horn O and Githaiga C (2022). “The determinants of planetary health: an Indigenous consensus perspective”. Lancet Planetary Health 6(2): e156-e163. 

Riaz, M. M. A., Wangari, M.-C. & Mugambi, J. K. No climate change justice in lieu of global authorship equity. The Lancet 401, 1074 (2023).

Rosenzweig, C. et al. Coordinating AgMIP data and models across global and regional scales for 1.5°C and 2.0°C assessments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 376, 20160455 (2018). 

Rossa-Rocor V, Giang A and Kershaw P (2021). “Framing climate change as a human health issue: enough to tip the scale in climate policy?” Lancet Planetary Health 5(8): e553-e559. 

Springmann, M. et al. Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Nature 562, 519–525 (2018).

Springmann, M. et al. The healthiness and sustainability of national and global food based dietary guidelines: modelling study. BMJ 370, m2322 (2020).

Steffen et al. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855

Whitmee, S. et al. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health. The Lancet 386, 1973–2028 (2015).

Willett, W. et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet 393, 447–492 (2019).
 

Recommended reading related to transferrable skills (in alphabetical order):

Bicchieri C, Lindemans JW, Jiang T. A structured approach to a diagnostic of collective practices. Front Psychol. 2014 Dec 5;5:1418. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01418. PMID: 25538666; PMCID: PMC4257103. 

GBD 2017 Diet Collaborators et al. Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet 0, (2019).

Sarkis, J. Sustainable Transitions: Technology, Resources, and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.08.018

Sarmiento Barletti, JP and Larson AM (2017). “Rights abuse allegations in the context of REDD+ readiness and implementation”. CIFOR Infobrief 190.  

Sherman MH and Ford J (2013). “Stakeholder engagement in adaptation interventions: an evaluation of projects in developing nations”. Climate Policy 14(3): 417-441. 
 

Websites and other useful resources (in alphabetical order):

Greener NHS: https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/  

R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data. https://r4ds.had.co.nz/  - free to view online  

RStudio Cheatsheets inc Data Visualization with ggplot2. https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/ - free to download online 

Page last updated September 2025