Social and environmental risk factors in the emergence of infectious diseases

By R. Weiss, A. Mcmichael. Nature Medicine, 2004

624 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Fifty years ago, the age-old scourge of infectious disease was receding in the developed world in response to improved public health measures, while the advent of antibiotics, better vaccines, insecticides and improved surveillance held the promise of eradicating residual problems. By the late twentieth century, however, an increase in the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases was evident in many parts of the world. This upturn looms as the fourth major transition in human–microbe relationships since the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago. About 30 new diseases have been identified, including Legionnaires' disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), hepatitis C, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)/variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), Nipah virus, several viral hemorrhagic fevers and, most recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza. The emergence of these diseases, and resurgence of old ones like tuberculosis and cholera, reflects various changes in human ecology: rural-to-urban migration resulting in high-density peri-urban slums; increasing long-distance mobility and trade; the social disruption of war and conflict; changes in personal behavior; and, increasingly, human-induced global changes, including widespread forest clearance and climate change. Political ignorance, denial and obduracy (as with HIV/AIDS) further compound the risks. The use and misuse of medical technology also pose risks, such as drug-resistant microbes and contaminated equipment or biological medicines. A better understanding of the evolving social dynamics of emerging infectious diseases ought to help us to anticipate and hopefully ameliorate current and future risks.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Infectious Diseases, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/57ee4f9fd76ea900190168633589bcd03a0a0c7f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Agronomy and Crop Science

1. Ross K. Meentemeyer
2. P. Daszak

In Infectious Diseases

1. Ross K. Meentemeyer
2. P. Daszak
3. T. E. Condeso

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. Ross K. Meentemeyer
2. F. Chappuis
3. P. Daszak
4. T. E. Condeso

Citations in the corpus

• Role of ventilation in airborne transmission of infectious agents in the built environment - a multidisciplinary systematic review. (2007, background): “Moreover, the dense contact networks that characterize urban cities form an ideal basis for rapid and uncontrolled disease propagation, especially by the airborne route of spread (Eubank et al., 2004; Weiss and McMichael, 2004).”
• Global trends in emerging infectious diseases (2008, background): “(7) ‘Transmission mode’ (TranMode): (0) pathogen causing the EID event not normally transmitted by a vector; and (1) pathogen causing the event transmitted by a vector.”
• Cross-Species Virus Transmission and the Emergence of New Epidemic Diseases (2008, neutral): “, deforestation and agricultural expansion) (88, 140).”
• Improved Response to Disasters and Outbreaks by Tracking Population Movements with Mobile Phone Network Data: A Post-Earthquake Geospatial Study in Haiti (2011, background): “Human mobility is extremely important for the spread of communicable diseases [28,29], and early containment of epidemic outbreaks is often a key factor in preventing spread [30].”
• Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases (2017, background): “Our results suggest that the risk of disease emergence is elevated in tropical forest regions, high in mammal biodiversity, and experiencing anthropogenic land use changes related to agricultural practices 16 – 18 .”
• Urbanisation and infectious diseases in a globalised world (2011, background): “71 Some that were traditionally thought of as rural, have adapted to the urban environment and are now common in cities.”
• Effects of landscape heterogeneity on the emerging forest disease sudden oak death (2007, background): “A major consequence of human expansion and global movement is the number of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (Mayer 2000; Weiss & McMichael 2004; Ehrenfeld 2005).”