Landscape epidemiology

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Landscape epidemiology draws some of its roots from the field of landscape ecology. [1] Just as the discipline of landscape ecology is concerned with analyzing both pattern and process in ecosystems across time and space, landscape epidemiology can be used to analyze both risk patterns and environmental risk factors. This field emerges from the theory that most vectors, hosts and pathogens are commonly tied to the landscape as environmental determinants control their distribution and abundance. [2] In 1966, Evgeniy Pavlovsky introduced the concept of natural nidality or focality, defined by the idea that microscale disease foci are determined by the entire ecosystem. [3] With the recent availability of new computing technologies such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, statistical methods including spatial statistics and theories of landscape ecology, the concept of landscape epidemiology has been applied analytically to a variety of disease systems, including malaria, [4] hantavirus, Lyme disease and Chagas' disease. [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theoretical ecology</span>

Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computational simulations, and advanced data analysis. Effective models improve understanding of the natural world by revealing how the dynamics of species populations are often based on fundamental biological conditions and processes. Further, the field aims to unify a diverse range of empirical observations by assuming that common, mechanistic processes generate observable phenomena across species and ecological environments. Based on biologically realistic assumptions, theoretical ecologists are able to uncover novel, non-intuitive insights about natural processes. Theoretical results are often verified by empirical and observational studies, revealing the power of theoretical methods in both predicting and understanding the noisy, diverse biological world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epidemic</span> Rapid spread of disease affecting a large number of people in a short time

An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human ecology</span> Study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments

Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology, geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, zoology, epidemiology, public health, and home economics, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Landscape ecology</span> Science of relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems

Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems. This is done within a variety of landscape scales, development spatial patterns, and organizational levels of research and policy. Concisely, landscape ecology can be described as the science of "landscape diversity" as the synergetic result of biodiversity and geodiversity.

Ecoinformatics, or ecological informatics, is the science of information in ecology and environmental science. It integrates environmental and information sciences to define entities and natural processes with language common to both humans and computers. However, this is a rapidly developing area in ecology and there are alternative perspectives on what constitutes ecoinformatics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health geography</span>

Health geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care. Medical geography, a sub-discipline of or sister field of health geography, focuses on understanding spatial patterns of health and disease as related to the natural and social environment. Conventionally, there are two primary areas of research within medical geography: the first deals with the spatial distribution and determinants of morbidity and mortality, while the second deals with health planning, help-seeking behavior, and the provision of health services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Systems ecology</span> Holistic approach to the study of ecological systems

Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology. Central to the systems ecology approach is the idea that an ecosystem is a complex system exhibiting emergent properties. Systems ecology focuses on interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems, and is especially concerned with the way the functioning of ecosystems can be influenced by human interventions. It uses and extends concepts from thermodynamics and develops other macroscopic descriptions of complex systems.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ecology:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecosystem model</span> A typically mathematical representation of an ecological system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yevgeny Pavlovsky</span> Soviet scientist (1884–1965)

Yevgeny Nikanorovich Pavlovsky was a Soviet zoologist, entomologist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1939), the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944), honorary member of the Tajik Academy of Sciences (1951), and a lieutenant general of the Red Army Medical Service in World War II.

Rajpal Singh Yadav is an Indian scientist in the field of vector ecology and management at World Health Organization headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. He has been working with various countries and international organizations to formulate and promote policies for public health pesticide management and vector control.

Sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance, synonym epidemiological reconnaissance is a literal name of a concept and routine of finding out disease potential on a territory of arrival of major contingent. Russian: санитарно-эпидемиологическая разведка, син. эпидемиологическая разведка. This is a kind of medical reconnaissance, process of information gathering on possible infectious diseases' origin-sources, the ways and factors of the infection transfer and determining all conditions that could have promoted the spread of infestation among army service personnel. In 1939 Academician E.N.Pavlovsky announced his "doctrine of nidality", so called by Soviet biologists. People can acquire zoonoses and insect-borne diseases when they occupy at certain times of the year natural habitat of a certain pathogen. The WHO Expert Committee on Zoonoses listed over 100 such diseases. About natural focality of the diseases is known elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Landscape genetics</span> Combination of population genetics and landscape ecology

Landscape genetics is the scientific discipline that combines population genetics and landscape ecology. It broadly encompasses any study that analyses plant or animal population genetic data in conjunction with data on the landscape features and matrix quality where the sampled population lives. This allows for the analysis of microevolutionary processes affecting the species in light of landscape spatial patterns, providing a more realistic view of how populations interact with their environments. Landscape genetics attempts to determine which landscape features are barriers to dispersal and gene flow, how human-induced landscape changes affect the evolution of populations, the source-sink dynamics of a given population, and how diseases or invasive species spread across landscapes.

Disease ecology is a sub-discipline of ecology concerned with the mechanisms, patterns, and effects of host-pathogen interactions, particularly those of infectious diseases. For example, it examines how parasites spread through and influence wildlife populations and communities. By studying the flow of diseases within the natural environment, scientists seek to better understand how changes within our environment can shape how pathogens, and other diseases, travel. Therefore, diseases ecology seeks to understand the links between ecological interactions and disease evolution. New emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are increasing at unprecedented rates which can have lasting impacts on public health, ecosystem health, and biodiversity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change and infectious diseases</span> Overview of the relationship between climate change and infectious diseases

Global climate change has increased the occurrence of some infectious diseases. Infectious diseases whose transmission is impacted by climate change include, for example, vector-borne diseases like dengue fever, malaria, tick-borne diseases, leishmaniasis, zika fever, chikungunya and Ebola. One mechanism contributing to increased disease transmission is that climate change is altering the geographic range and seasonality of the insects that can carry the diseases. Scientists stated a clear observation in 2022: "the occurrence of climate-related food-borne and waterborne diseases has increased ."

<i>Anopheles atroparvus</i> Palearctic mosquito species

Anopheles atroparvus is a European species of mosquito, which was first identified in 1927. It is one of the most abundant palearctic Anopheles species belonging to the family Culicidae, commonly called mosquitoes. Although research interest in A. atroparvus has been low in the past several decades, recent concern for an increase in vector-borne disease has encouraged new research into this species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. Alonso Aguirre</span> American veterinarian, wildlife biologist

A. Alonso Aguirre is an American veterinarian, wildlife biologist, academic and researcher. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, College of Science, and he also chairs the university Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at George Mason University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Macdonald (malariologist)</span>

George Macdonald was a British physician who was Professor of Tropical Hygiene at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. His research concentrated primarily on malaria, its epidemiology and control. He was the author of many papers on the mathematical analysis of transmission of tropical infections and the author of The Epidemiology and Control of Malaria, published in 1957.

Richard Simon Ostfeld is a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He is best known for his work on the ecology of Lyme disease, which he began studying while monitoring the abundance of small mammals in the forests of Cary Institute property in the early 1990s.

References

  1. Kitron, U. "Landscape Ecology and Epidemiology of Vector-Borne Diseases: Tools for Spatial Analysis." Journal of Medical Entomology. 1998(35):435-445.
  2. Pavlovsky, E.N. Natural Nidality of Transmissible Diseases, With Special Reference to the Landscape Epidemiology of Zooanthroponse. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1966.
  3. Galuzo, I.G. "Landscape Epidemiology (epizootiology)." Advances in Veterinary Science & Comparative Medicine. 1975(19):73-96.
  4. Chaves, L. S. M.; Conn, J. E.; López, R. V. M.; Sallum, M. A. M. (2018). "Abundance of impacted forest patches less than 5 km² is a key driver of the incidence of malaria in Amazonian Brazil." Scientific reports. 8(1), 7077. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25344-5.
  5. Brownstein, J.S.; Rosen, H.; Purdy, D.; Miller, J.; Merlino, M.; Mostashari, F.; Fish, D. "Spatial Analysis of West Nile Virus: Rapid Risk Assessment of an Introduced Vector-Borne Zoonosis." Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. 2(3):157-164.