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Staff Profile

Staff Profile

Dr Duika Burges Watson

Lecturer

Background

Dr Duika L.Burges Watson core research interests are in inter-disciplinary approaches to food and well-being – from source to senses. 



Research

Changed relationships with food

A core focus of my current research is on changed relationships with food, which involve  ' a changed state of any combination of environmental, physical, emotional and social interactions with food and eating that has a negative impact on health and wellbeing”. 

Research specialties

Food from source to senses, alternative food networks, food policy, knowledge exchange, wider engagement and patient and public involvement, critical geographies and qualitative methods in health research.

Teaching

HSC8007: Global Health in the Anthropocene


Module Leader: Dr Duika L. Burges Watson

Lecturers: Prof Ted Shrecker, Prof Andy Large, Dr Andrew Law, Dr Mark Booth, Prof Tiago Moreira

It is now widely argued that humanity has entered a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – characterised by the unprecedented scale, scope and interactions of multiple human impacts on the biosphere. The importance of the concept and associated challenges have been underscored by the 2015 report of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60901-1/fulltext). Climate change is the most familiar of these impacts, but it is far from the only one, and understandings of what the concept of the Anthropocene means for health policy, global health and global justice are still evolving. Like the Lancet Commission, this module uses the Anthropocene as a ‘window’ into broader issues related to the connections between environment and health, introduces students to the relevant bodies of research evidence, and offers them the opportunity to apply understandings of that evidence to specific challenges in research design, policy development and public health practice.

Sample readings:

Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O., & Ludwig, C. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2,81-98. Online: 

http://faculty.bennington.edu/~kwoods/classes/global%20change/global_readings_15/Steffen%20et%20al.%20-%202015%20-%20The%20trajectory%20of%20the%20Anthropocene%20The%20Great%20Acce.pdf


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

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60901-1/fulltext


Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Steffen, W., & Crutzen, P. (2010). The New World of the Anthropocene. Environmental Science & Technology, 44,2228-2231. Online: 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es903118j


Editorial board of Cities and Health (2017). Cities and health: an evolving global conversation. Cities & Health, 1,1-9. Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2017.1316025


Sassen, S. (2016). What is Behind the New Migrations: A Massive Loss of Habitat. Deterritorial Investigations (Video). Online: 

https://deterritorialinvestigations.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/saskia-sassen-what-is-behind-the-new-migrations-a-massive-loss-of-habitat/


Haines, A. (2017). Addressing challenges to human health in the Anthropocene epoch - an overview of the findings of the Rockefeller/Lancet Commission on Planetary Health. International Health, 9,269-271 

https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/article/9/5/269/4104523


Logan, A.C., Prescott, S.L., Haahtela, T. and Katz, D.L., 2018. The importance of the exposome and allostatic load in the planetary health paradigm. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 37(1), p.15. 

https://jphysiolanthropol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40101-018-0176-8


Publications