Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Socio-ecological Dimension

Excerpt

EcoHealth is a forum for mixing disciplines. In this journal, we deal with scientific questions on toxins and biodiversity, land use changes and disease vectors, diseases and ecosystems. Often, they involve a human, social dimension such as population expansion or community health, or disease spread among cities. These interactions span spatial scales from specific factors that affect health (a toxin, a pathogen) to broad environmental changes (climate, deforestation, wildlife trade, biodiversity loss, and human travel). Invariably, this complexity and range pose a new challenge: How do we conduct rigorous science across all of these spatial and temporal scales and across disciplinary divides? In this special issue on socio-ecological systems and emerging infectious diseases, a series of articles address emerging diseases considered from the standpoint of the interaction between human and natural systems. They examine population-scale human influence on pathogen dynamics and health, and the pathogen’s influence on humans. These studies also have important implications for global health, ecosystem resilience, and conservation of biodiversity. How? By examining the linkages between the underlying drivers of disease spread and emergence and the pathogens that cause them. …