An official website of the United States government
A comprehensive approach to integrated one health surveillance and responseSurveillance data plays a crucial role in understanding and responding to emerging infectious diseases; here, we learn why adopting a One Health surveillance approach to EIDs can help to protect human, animal, and environmental health. Over 75% of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) affecting humans are zoonotic diseases with animal hosts, which can be transmitted by waterborne, foodborne, vector-borne, or air-borne pathways. (7) Early detection is important and allows for a rapid response through preventive and control measures. However, early detection of EIDs is hindered by several obstacles, such as climate change, which can alter habitats, leading to shifts in the distribution of disease- carrying vectors like mosquitoes and ticks. This can result in diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and Lyme disease becoming more common in areas with established transmission or spreading to new areas entirely. (4) Environmental changes such as deforestation and urbanization disrupt ecosystems, increasing the likelihood of zoonotic disease spillover from wildlife to humans. In addition to working at the interface of these changes, detection and tracking of EIDs also requires sharing and standardization of complex data and integrating processes across different regions and health systems.
more »
« less
Uncovering the Holocene roots of contemporary disease-scapes: bringing archaeology into One Health
The accelerating pace of emerging zoonotic diseases in the twenty-first century has motivated cross-disciplinary collaboration on One Health approaches, combining microbiology, veterinary and environmental sciences, and epidemiology for outbreak prevention and mitigation. Such outbreaks are often caused by spillovers attributed to human activities that encroach on wildlife habitats and ecosystems, such as land use change, industrialized food production, urbanization and animal trade. While the origin of anthropogenic effects on animal ecology and biogeography can be traced to the Late Pleistocene, the archaeological record—a long-term archive of human–animal–environmental interactions—has largely been untapped in these One Health approaches, thus limiting our understanding of these dynamics over time. In this review, we examine how humans, as niche constructors, have facilitated new host species and ‘disease-scapes’ from the Late Pleistocene to the Anthropocene, by viewing zooarchaeological, bioarchaeological and palaeoecological data with a One Health perspective. We also highlight how new biomolecular tools and advances in the ‘-omics’ can be holistically coupled with archaeological and palaeoecological reconstructions in the service of studying zoonotic disease emergence and re-emergence.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2142133
- PAR ID:
- 10490466
- Publisher / Repository:
- Royal Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Volume:
- 290
- Issue:
- 2012
- ISSN:
- 0962-8452
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Zoonotic and vector-borne infectious diseases are among the most direct human health consequences of biodiversity change. The COVID-19 pandemic increased health policymakers’ attention on the links between ecological degradation and disease, and sparked discussions around nature-based interventions to mitigate zoonotic emergence and epidemics. Yet, although disease ecology provides an increasingly granular knowledge of wildlife disease in changing ecosystems, we still have a poor understanding of the net consequences for human disease. Here, we argue that a renewed focus on wildlife-borne diseases as complex socio-ecological systems—a‘people and nature’paradigm—is needed to identify local interventions and transformative system-wide changes that could reduce human disease burden. We discuss longstanding scientific narratives of human involvement in zoonotic disease systems, which have largely framed people as ecological disruptors, and discuss three emerging research areas that provide wider system perspectives: how anthropogenic ecosystems construct new niches for infectious disease, feedbacks between disease, biodiversity and social vulnerability and the role of human-to-animal pathogen transmission (‘spillback’) in zoonotic disease systems. We conclude by discussing new opportunities to better understand the predictability of human disease outcomes from biodiversity change and to integrate ecological drivers of disease into health intervention design and evaluation. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace's legacy for a biodiverse future’.more » « less
-
Helminths are parasites that cause disease at considerable cost to public health and present a risk for emergence as novel human infections. Although recent research has elucidated characteristics conferring a propensity to emergence in other parasite groups (e.g. viruses), the understanding of factors associated with zoonotic potential in helminths remains poor. We applied an investigator-directed learning algorithm to a global dataset of mammal helminth traits to identify factors contributing to spillover of helminths from wild animal hosts into humans. We characterized parasite traits that distinguish between zoonotic and non-zoonotic species with 91% accuracy. Results suggest that helminth traits relating to transmission (e.g. definitive and intermediate hosts) and geography (e.g. distribution) are more important to discriminating zoonotic from non-zoonotic species than morphological or epidemiological traits. Whether or not a helminth causes infection in companion animals (cats and dogs) is the most important predictor of propensity to cause human infection. Finally, we identified helminth species with high modelled propensity to cause zoonosis (over 70%) that have not previously been considered to be of risk. This work highlights the importance of prioritizing studies on the transmission of helminths that infect pets and points to the risks incurred by close associations with these animals. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Infectious disease macroecology: parasite diversity and dynamics across the globe’.more » « less
-
Zoonotic diseases are infectious diseases of humans caused by pathogens that are shared between humans and other vertebrate animals. Previously, pristine natural areas with high biodiversity were seen as likely sources of new zoonotic pathogens, suggesting that biodiversity could have negative impacts on human health. At the same time, biodiversity has been recognized as potentially benefiting human health by reducing the transmission of some pathogens that have already established themselves in human populations. These apparently opposing effects of biodiversity in human health may now be reconcilable. Recent research demonstrates that some taxa are much more likely to be zoonotic hosts than others are, and that these animals often proliferate in human-dominated landscapes, increasing the likelihood of spillover. In less-disturbed areas, however, these zoonotic reservoir hosts are less abundant and nonreservoirs predominate. Thus, biodiversity loss appears to increase the risk of human exposure to both new and established zoonotic pathogens. This new synthesis of the effects of biodiversity on zoonotic diseases presents an opportunity to articulate the next generation of research questions that can inform management and policy. Future studies should focus on collecting and analyzing data on the diversity, abundance, and capacity to transmit of the taxa that actually share zoonotic pathogens with us. To predict and prevent future epidemics, researchers should also focus on how these metrics change in response to human impacts on the environment, and how human behaviors can mitigate these effects. Restoration of biodiversity is an important frontier in the management of zoonotic disease risk.more » « less
-
One Health initiatives have advanced zoonotic disease management by recognizing the interconnectedness of three sectors of governance (human, ecosystem, and animal) and by identifying options that can improve full‐system health. Although One Health has had many successes, its full realization may be inhibited by a lack of strategies to overcome simultaneous impediments in decision making and governance. Decision impediments that hinder management may include uncertainty, risk, resource limitations, and trade‐offs among objectives. Governance impediments arise from disparities in costs and benefits of disease management among sectors. Tools and strategies developed from decision science, collaboration, and negotiation theory can help articulate and overcome coinciding decision and governance impediments and enhance multisectoral One Health initiatives. In cases where collaboration and negotiation are insufficient to address disparities in cross‐sector costs and benefits, altering incentive structures might improve disease‐specific outcomes and improve the realization of One Health.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0525
