Food Safety and Nutrition: A Global Approach to Public Health (FutureLearn)

On this three week course, you’ll learn some of the challenges of ensuring food security faced by researchers, policymakers and individuals worldwide.
Understand food safety and nutrition issues and why they occur on a global scale

You’ll explore how large-scale change (industrialisation, globalisation, population growth and climate change) affects food safety and understand the consequences for the world’s health and nutrition.
Uncover the evolving challenges of ensuring food safety

Using examples from current research, you’ll explore common and emerging global food safety issues.

You’ll investigate some well- documented food scandals and scares as well as hidden or chronic exposures to contaminated food before you discover and discover innovations designed to counter food safety risks.
Explore today’s pressing global nutrition issues

As you consider whose responsibility it is to maintain the safety of our food, you’ll learn the biological function of different nutrients and examine the global impact of nutrient deficiency and malnutrition.

You’ll also explore global nutrition challenges and ways of reducing the burden of malnutrition and nutrition deficiencies. You’ll consider the difficulties in meeting macronutrient and micronutrient requirements and explore research into developing sustainable responses to the world’s nutritional needs.
Learn from industry experts

This course draws from innovative research into food safety and nutrition conducted by the University of Leeds, Jiangsu University in China, and The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Tanzania.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Identify common key food safety issues and their prevalence globally

- Describe the impact of climate, population and industrial change on current and future food safety

- Explain the common characteristics, assessment methods and impact associated with food scares, scandals and chronic exposures

- Engage with research into mitigating the risks of food safety issues and debate a topical food safety issue

- Identify the relationship between macronutrient and micronutrient intake and health

- Discuss nutritional challenges and identify those relevant in your own context

- Engage with current research into developing sustainable and innovative approaches to meeting global nutrient needs

What topics will you cover?

Week 1:

How do we keep the world’s food safe?

How do we define nutrients and nutrient requirements?

How are food safety and nutrition connected?
Week 2:

What are the global challenges to food safety?

Global food scares and scandals

Hidden global challenges and chronic exposures
Week 3:

What are the global challenges in food and health?

Macronutrients: A question of quality and balance

Micronutrient deficiency: Solutions to a global challenge