TRANSDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL CASE: DEVELOPING A MESH (MUNICIPAL-ENVIRONMENTAL-SOCIAL-HEALTH) PLATFORM.

The paper presents an on-going research program that aims to develop a MESH (Municipal-Environmental-Social-Health) platform that will facilitate the prevention of type 2 diabetes and promote healthy life and people well-being. The MESH platform exhibits the realization that the ecological aspects that are caused by humans influence our health. The ecological determinants are coupled with the social determinants of health which are the non-medical health factors that influence health outcomes and reflect the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. The MESH comprehensive framework includes methods and tools for MESH platform development. The first phase of the on-going research is a collaborative transdisciplinary course of the design, engineering, and medicine faculties. Students from the different domains collaborate and practice the design thinking methodology to come up with innovative solutions for the MESH platform. In this short paper we present the research and the challenge the students face as well as the course pedagogical vision and structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]