Publications
115 results found
Charnley GEC, Kelman I, Murray KA, 2022, Drought-related cholera outbreaks in Africa and the implications for climate change: a narrative review., Pathogens and Global Health, Vol: 116, Pages: 3-12, ISSN: 2047-7724
Africa has historically seen several periods of prolonged and extreme droughts across the continent, causing food insecurity, exacerbating social inequity and frequent mortality. A known consequence of droughts and their associated risk factors are infectious disease outbreaks, which are worsened by malnutrition, poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene and population displacement. Cholera is a potential causative agent of such outbreaks. Africa has the highest global cholera burden, several drought-prone regions and high levels of inequity. Despite this, research on cholera and drought in Africa is lacking. Here, we review available research on drought-related cholera outbreaks in Africa and identify a variety of potential mechanisms through which these outbreaks occurred, including poor access to water, marginalization of refugees and nomadic populations, expansion of informal urban settlements and demographic risks. Future climate change may alter precipitation, temperature and drought patterns, resulting in more extremes, although these changes are likely to be spatially heterogeneous. Despite high uncertainty in future drought projections, increases in drought frequency and/or durations have the potential to alter these related outbreaks into the future, potentially increasing cholera burden in the absence of countermeasures (e.g. improved sanitation infrastructure). To enable effective planning for a potentially more drought-prone Africa, inequity must be addressed, research on the health implications of drought should be enhanced, and better drought diplomacy is required to improve drought resilience under climate change.
Charnley GEC, Kelman I, Green N, et al., 2021, Exploring relationships between drought and epidemic cholera in Africa using generalised linear models, BMC Infectious Diseases, Vol: 21
BackgroundTemperature and precipitation are known to affect Vibrio cholerae outbreaks. Despite this, the impact of drought on outbreaks has been largely understudied. Africa is both drought and cholera prone and more research is needed in Africa to understand cholera dynamics in relation to drought.MethodsHere, we analyse a range of environmental and socioeconomic covariates and fit generalised linear models to publicly available national data, to test for associations with several indices of drought and make cholera outbreak projections to 2070 under three scenarios of global change, reflecting varying trajectories of CO2 emissions, socio-economic development, and population growth.ResultsThe best-fit model implies that drought is a significant risk factor for African cholera outbreaks, alongside positive effects of population, temperature and poverty and a negative effect of freshwater withdrawal. The projections show that following stringent emissions pathways and expanding sustainable development may reduce cholera outbreak occurrence in Africa, although these changes were spatially heterogeneous.ConclusionsDespite an effect of drought in explaining recent cholera outbreaks, future projections highlighted the potential for sustainable development gains to offset drought-related impacts on cholera risk. Future work should build on this research investigating the impacts of drought on cholera on a finer spatial scale and potential non-linear relationships, especially in high-burden countries which saw little cholera change in the scenario analysis.
Castaneda-Guzman M, Mantilla-Saltos G, Murray KA, et al., 2021, A database of global coastal conditions, SCIENTIFIC DATA, Vol: 8
Malhotra A, Wüster W, Owens JB, et al., 2021, Promoting co-existence between humans and venomous snakes through increasing the herpetological knowledge base., Toxicon X, Vol: 12
Snakebite incidence at least partly depends on the biology of the snakes involved. However, studies of snake biology have been largely neglected in favour of anthropic factors, with the exception of taxonomy, which has been recognised for some decades to affect the design of antivenoms. Despite this, within-species venom variation and the unpredictability of the correlation with antivenom cross-reactivity has continued to be problematic. Meanwhile, other aspects of snake biology, including behaviour, spatial ecology and activity patterns, distribution, and population demography, which can contribute to snakebite mitigation and prevention, remain underfunded and understudied. Here, we review the literature relevant to these aspects of snakebite and illustrate how demographic, spatial, and behavioural studies can improve our understanding of why snakebites occur and provide evidence for prevention strategies. We identify the large gaps that remain to be filled and urge that, in the future, data and relevant metadata be shared openly via public data repositories so that studies can be properly replicated and data used in future meta-analyses.
Romanello M, McGushin A, Di Napoli C, et al., 2021, The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future, LANCET, Vol: 398, Pages: 1619-1662, ISSN: 0140-6736
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 388
Hanley-Cook GT, Huybrechts I, Biessy C, et al., 2021, Food biodiversity and total and cause-specific mortality in 9 European countries: An analysis of a prospective cohort study, PLoS Medicine, Vol: 18, ISSN: 1549-1277
BackgroundFood biodiversity, encompassing the variety of plants, animals, and other organisms consumed as food and drink, has intrinsic potential to underpin diverse, nutritious diets and improve Earth system resilience. Dietary species richness (DSR), which is recommended as a crosscutting measure of food biodiversity, has been positively associated with the micronutrient adequacy of diets in women and young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the relationships between DSR and major health outcomes have yet to be assessed in any population.Methods and findingsWe examined the associations between DSR and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality among 451,390 adults enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study (1992 to 2014, median follow-up: 17 years), free of cancer, diabetes, heart attack, or stroke at baseline. Usual dietary intakes were assessed at recruitment with country-specific dietary questionnaires (DQs). DSR of an individual’s yearly diet was calculated based on the absolute number of unique biological species in each (composite) food and drink. Associations were assessed by fitting multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression models. In the EPIC cohort, 2 crops (common wheat and potato) and 2 animal species (cow and pig) accounted for approximately 45% of self-reported total dietary energy intake [median (P10–P90): 68 (40 to 83) species consumed per year]. Overall, higher DSR was inversely associated with all-cause mortality rate. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing total mortality in the second, third, fourth, and fifth (highest) quintiles (Qs) of DSR to the first (lowest) Q indicate significant inverse associations, after stratification by sex, age, and study center and adjustment for smoking status, educational level, marital status, physical activity, alcohol intake, and total energy intake, Mediterranean diet score, red
Martin G, Erinjery J, Ediriweera D, et al., 2021, Redefining snakebite envenoming as a zoonosis: disease incidence is driven by snake ecology, socioeconomics and anthropogenic impacts
<jats:p>Snakebite is the only WHO-listed, not infectious neglected tropical disease (NTD), although its eco-epidemiology is similar to that of zoonotic infections: envenoming occurs after a vertebrate host contacts a human. Accordingly, snakebite risk represents the interaction between snake and human factors, but their quantification has been limited by data availability. Models of infectious disease transmission are instrumental for the mitigation of NTDs and zoonoses. Here, we represented snake-human interactions with disease transmission models to approximate geospatial estimates of snakebite incidence in Sri Lanka, a global hotspot. Snakebites and envenomings are described by the product of snake and human abundance, mirroring directly transmitted zoonoses. We found that human-snake contact rates vary according to land cover (surrogate of occupation and socioeconomic status), the impacts of humans and climate on snake abundance, and by snake species. Our findings show that redefining snakebite as zoonosis provides a mechanistic eco-epidemiological basis to understand snakebites, and the possible implications of global environmental and demographic change for the burden of snakebite.</jats:p>
Pintor AFV, Ray N, Longbottom J, et al., 2021, Addressing the global snakebite crisis with geo-spatial analyses - Recent advances and future direction., Toxicon X, Vol: 11
Venomous snakebite is a neglected tropical disease that annually leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths or long-term physical and mental ailments across the developing world. Insufficient data on spatial variation in snakebite risk, incidence, human vulnerability, and accessibility of medical treatment contribute substantially to ineffective on-ground management. There is an urgent need to collect data, fill knowledge gaps and address on-ground management problems. The use of novel, and transdisciplinary approaches that take advantage of recent advances in spatio-temporal models, 'big data', high performance computing, and fine-scale spatial information can add value to snakebite management by strategically improving our understanding and mitigation capacity of snakebite. We review the background and recent advances on the topic of snakebite related geospatial analyses and suggest avenues for priority research that will have practical on-ground applications for snakebite management and mitigation. These include streamlined, targeted data collection on snake distributions, snakebites, envenomings, venom composition, health infrastructure, and antivenom accessibility along with fine-scale models of spatio-temporal variation in snakebite risk and incidence, intraspecific venom variation, and environmental change modifying human exposure. These measures could improve and 'future-proof' antivenom production methods, antivenom distribution and stockpiling systems, and human-wildlife conflict management practices, while simultaneously feeding into research on venom evolution, snake taxonomy, ecology, biogeography, and conservation.
Charnley GEC, Kelman I, Green N, et al., 2021, Exploring relationships between drought and epidemic cholera in Africa using generalised linear models, Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Background Temperature and precipitation are known to affect Vibrio cholerae outbreaks. Despite this, the impact of drought on outbreaks has been largely understudied. Africa is both drought and cholera prone and more research is needed in Africa to understand cholera dynamics in relation to drought.Methods Here, we analyse a range of environmental and socioeconomic covariates and fit generalised linear models to publicly available national data, to test for associations with several indices of drought and make cholera outbreak projections to 2070 under three scenarios of global change, reflecting varying trajectories of CO2 emissions, socio-economic development, and population growth.Results The best-fit model implies that drought is a significant risk factor for African cholera outbreaks, alongside positive effects of population, temperature and poverty and a negative effect of freshwater withdrawal. The projections show that following stringent emissions pathways and expanding sustainable development may reduce cholera outbreak occurrence in Africa, although these changes were spatially heterogeneous.Conclusions Despite an effect of drought in explaining recent cholera outbreaks, future projections highlighted the potential for sustainable development gains to offset drought-related impacts on cholera risk. Future work should build on this research investigating the impacts of drought on cholera on a finer spatial scale and potential non-linear relationships, especially in high-burden countries which saw little cholera change in the scenario analysis.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementThis work was supported by the Natural Environmental Research Council [NE/S007415] as part of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environments (Imperial College London) Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet Doctoral Training Partnership. We also acknowledge joint Centre funding from the UK Medical Research
Martín G, Yáñez-Arenas C, Rangel-Camacho R, et al., 2021, Implications of global environmental change for the burden of snakebite., Toxicon X, Vol: 9-10
Snakebite envenoming is a set of intoxication diseases that disproportionately affect people of poor socioeconomic backgrounds in tropical countries. As it is highly dependent on the environment its burden is expected to shift spatially with global anthropogenic environmental (climate, land use) and demographic change. The mechanisms underlying the changes to snakebite epidemiology are related to factors of snakes and humans. The distribution and abundance of snakes are expected to change with global warming via their thermal tolerance, while rainfall may affect the timing of key activities like feeding and reproduction. Human population growth is the primary cause of land-use change, which may impact snakes at smaller spatial scales than climate via habitat and biodiversity loss (e.g. prey availability). Human populations, on the other hand, could experience novel patterns and morbidity of snakebite envenoming, both as a result of snake responses to environmental change and due to the development of agricultural adaptations to climate change, socioeconomic and cultural changes, development and availability of better antivenoms, personal protective equipment, and mechanization of agriculture that mediate risk of encounters with snakes and their outcomes. The likely global effects of environmental and demographic change are thus context-dependent and could encompass both increasing and or snakebite burden (incidence, number of cases or morbidity), exposing new populations to snakes in temperate areas due to "tropicalization", or by land use change-induced snake biodiversity loss, respectively. Tackling global change requires drastic measures to ensure large-scale ecosystem functionality. However, as ecosystems represent the main source of venomous snakes their conservation should be accompanied by comprehensive public health campaigns. The challenges associated with the joint efforts of biodiversity conservation and public health professionals should be con
Wariri O, Okomo U, Kwarshak YK, et al., 2021, Timeliness of routine childhood vaccination in low- and middle-income countries, 1978-2021: Protocol for a scoping review to map methodologic gaps and determinants, PLOS ONE, Vol: 16, ISSN: 1932-6203
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 1
Ediriweera DS, Kasthuriratne A, Pathmeswaran A, et al., 2021, Evaluating spatiotemporal dynamics of snakebite in Sri Lanka: Monthly incidence mapping from a national representative survey sample, PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES, Vol: 15, ISSN: 1935-2735
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 3
Huxley PJ, Murray KA, Pawar S, et al., 2021, The effect of resource limitation on the temperature-dependence of mosquito population fitness, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol: 288, ISSN: 0962-8452
Laboratory-derived temperature dependencies of life history traits are increasingly being usedto make mechanistic predictions for how climatic warming will affect vector-borne diseasedynamics, partially by affecting abundance dynamics of the vector population. Thesetemperature-trait relationships are typically estimated from juvenile populations reared onoptimal resource supply, even though natural populations of vectors are expected toexperience variation in resource supply, including intermittent resource limitation. Usinglaboratory experiments on the mosquito Aedes aegypti, a principal arbovirus vector,combined with stage-structured population modelling, we show that low-resource supply inthe juvenile life stages significantly depresses the vector’s maximal population growth rateacross the entire temperature range (22–32°C) and causes it to peak at a lower temperaturethan at high-resource supply. This effect is primarily driven by an increase in juvenilemortality and development time, combined with a decrease in adult size with temperature atlow-resource supply. Our study suggests that most projections of temperature-dependentvector abundance and disease transmission are likely to be biased because they are based ontraits measured under optimal resource supply. Our results provide compelling evidence forfuture studies to consider resource supply when predicting the effects of climate and habitatchange on vector-borne disease transmission, disease vectors and other arthropods.
Charnley G, Murray K, Gaythorpe K, et al., 2021, Traits and risk factors of post-disaster infectious disease outbreaks: a systematic review, Scientific Reports, Vol: 11, Pages: 1-14, ISSN: 2045-2322
Infectious disease outbreaks are increasingly recognised as events that exacerbate impacts or prolong recovery following disasters. Yet, our understanding of the frequency, geography, characteristics and risk factors of post-disaster disease outbreaks globally is lacking. This limits the extent to which disease outbreak risks can be prepared for, monitored and responded to following disasters. Here, we conducted a global systematic review of post-disaster outbreaks and found that outbreaks linked to conflicts and hydrological events were most frequently reported, and most often caused by bacterial and water-borne agents. Lack of adequate WASH facilities and poor housing were commonly reported risk factors. Displacement, through infrastructure damage, can lead to risk cascades for disease outbreaks; however, displacement can also be an opportunity to remove people from danger and ultimately protect health. The results shed new light on post-disaster disease outbreaks and their risks. Understanding these risk factors and cascades, could help improve future region-specific disaster risk reduction.
Fisher MC, Murray KA, 2021, Emerging infections and the integrative environment-health sciences: the road ahead, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Vol: 19, Pages: 133-135, ISSN: 1740-1526
The integrative environment-health sciences including One Health, Conservation Medicine, EcoHealth and Planetary Health embody the transdisciplinary synthesis needed to understand the multitude of factors that underpin emerging infections and their management. Future successes in confronting and resolving the complex causal basis of disease emergence to generate robust, systems-oriented risk reduction strategies that preserve both human health as well as promoting sustainable futures represent the ‘Moon Shot’ for the integrative environment-health sciences.
Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, et al., 2021, The 2020 report of the <i>Lancet</i> Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises, LANCET, Vol: 397, Pages: 129-170, ISSN: 0140-6736
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 799
Goldstein E, Erinjery JJ, Martin G, et al., 2021, Integrating human behavior and snake ecology with agent-based models to predict snakebite in high risk landscapes, PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES, Vol: 15, ISSN: 1935-2735
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 11
Murray KA, Escobar LE, Lowe R, et al., 2020, Tracking infectious diseases in a warming world, BMJ-BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 371, ISSN: 0959-535X
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 4
Charnley G, Murray K, Katy G, et al., 2020, Understanding the risks for post-disaster infectious disease outbreaks: a systematic review protocol, BMJ Open, Vol: 10, ISSN: 2044-6055
IntroductionDisasters have many forms, including those related to natural hazards and armed conflict. Human-inducedglobal change, such as climate change, may alter hazard parameters of these disasters. These alterations canhave serious consequences for vulnerable populations, which often experience post-disaster infectiousdisease outbreaks, leading to morbidity and mortality. The risks and drivers for these outbreaks and theirability to form cascades, are somewhat contested. Despite evidence for post-disaster outbreaks, reviewsquantifying them have been on short time scales, specific geographic areas or specific hazards. This reviewaims to fill this gap and gain a greater understanding of the risk factors involved in these contextualoutbreaks on a global level.Methods and analysisUsing the PRISMA-P 2015 checklist and Khan’s methodological framework, a systematic search strategywill be created and carried out in August 2020. The strategy will search MEDLINE, Embase andGlobalHealth electronic databases and reference lists of selected literature will also be screened. Eligiblestudies will include any retrospective cross-sectional, case-control or cohort studies investigating aninfectious disease outbreak in a local disaster affected population. Studies will not be excluded based ongeographic area or publication date. Excluded papers will include non-English studies, reviews, single casestudies and research discussing general risk factors, international refugee camps, public health, mental healthand other non-communicable diseases, pathogen genetics or economics. Following selection, data will beextracted into a data charting form, that will be reviewed by other members of the team. The data will thenbe analysed both numerically and narratively.Ethics and disseminationOnly secondary data will be used and there will be no public or patient involvement; therefore, no ethicalapproval is needed. Our findings will aim to be disseminated through a peer-reviewed journal.
Iwamura T, Guzman-Holst A, Murray K, 2020, Accelerating invasion potential of disease vector Aedes aegypti under climate change, Nature Communications, Vol: 11, ISSN: 2041-1723
Vector-borne diseases remain a major contributor to the global burden of disease, while climate change is expected to exacerbate their risk. Characterising vector development rate and its spatio-temporal variation under climate change is central to assessing the changing basis of human disease risk. We develop a mechanistic phenology model and apply it to Aedes aegypti, an invasive mosquito vector for arboviruses (e.g. dengue, zika and yellow fever). The model predicts the number of life-cycle completions (LCC) for a given location per unit time based on empirically derived biophysical responses to environmental conditions. Results suggest that the world became ~1.5% more suitable per decade for the development of Ae. aegypti during 1950–2000, while this trend is predicted to accelerate to 3.2–4.4% per decade by 2050. Invasion fronts in North America and China are projected to accelerate from ~2 to 6 km/yr by 2050. An increase in peak LCC combined with extended periods suitable for mosquito development is simulated to accelerate the vector’s global invasion potential.
Tham S, Thompson R, Landeg O, et al., 2020, Indoor temperature and health: a global systematic review, Public Health, Vol: 179, Pages: 9-17, ISSN: 0033-3506
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to identify and appraise evidence on the direct and indirect impacts of high indoor temperatures on health; the indoor temperature threshold at which the identified health impacts are observed; and to summarise the evidence for establishing a maximum indoor temperature threshold for health. STUDY DESIGN: This is a systematic literature review and narrative synthesis. METHODS: A review of the published literature using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, PsycINFO, Maternity and Infant Care, Cochrane Library, CINAHL and GreenFILE databases was conducted. The search criteria were kept broad to capture evidence from all countries and contexts; no date or study design limits were applied, except English language limits. We included studies that specifically measured indoor temperature and examined its effect on physical or mental health outcomes. Evidence was graded using the National Institutes of Health framework. RESULTS: Twenty-two articles were included in the review, including 11 observational, seven cross-sectional and three longitudinal cohort studies and one prospective case-control study. Eight main health effects were described: respiratory, blood pressure, core temperature, blood glucose, mental health and cognition, heat-health symptoms, physical functioning and influenza transmission. Five studies found respiratory symptoms worsened in warm indoor environments, with one reporting indoor temperatures higher than 26 °C, which was associated with increased respiratory distress calls being made to paramedics (odds ratio = 1.63, P = 0.056). Core symptoms of schizophrenia and dementia were found to be significantly exacerbated by indoor heat (the latter above a 26 °C cumulative exposure threshold). The absorption of insulin doses in people with type one diabetes was also significantly accelerated in hot indoor environments. Only five studies reported the temperatures at which health out
Murray K, Martin G, Iwamura T, 2020, Focus on snake ecology to fight snakebite, The Lancet, Vol: 395, Pages: e14-e14, ISSN: 0140-6736
Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, et al., 2019, The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate, The Lancet, Vol: 394, Pages: 1836-1878, ISSN: 0140-6736
Tallis H, Kreis K, Olander L, et al., 2019, Aligning evidence generation and use across health, development, and environment, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol: 39, Pages: 81-93, ISSN: 1877-3435
Although health, development, and environment challenges are interconnected, evidence remains fractured across sectors due to methodological and conceptual differences in research and practice. Aligned methods are needed to support Sustainable Development Goal advances and similar agendas. The Bridge Collaborative, an emergent research-practice collaboration, presents principles and recommendations that help harmonize methods for evidence generation and use. Recommendations were generated in the context of designing and evaluating evidence of impact for interventions related to five global challenges (stabilizing the global climate, making food production sustainable, decreasing air pollution and respiratory disease, improving sanitation and water security, and solving hunger and malnutrition) and serve as a starting point for further iteration and testing in a broader set of contexts and disciplines. We adopted six principles and emphasize three methodological recommendations: (1) creation of compatible results chains, (2) consideration of all relevant types of evidence, and (3) evaluation of strength of evidence using a unified rubric. We provide detailed suggestions for how these recommendations can be applied in practice, streamlining efforts to apply multi-objective approaches and/or synthesize evidence in multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary teams. These recommendations advance the necessary process of reconciling existing evidence standards in health, development, and environment, and initiate a common basis for integrated evidence generation and use in research, practice, and policy design.
Ediriweera DS, Kasthuriratne A, Pathmeswaran A, et al., 2019, Adjusting for spatial variation when assessing individual-level risk: A case-study in the epidemiology of snake-bite in Sri Lanka, PLoS One, Vol: 14, ISSN: 1932-6203
BACKGROUND: Health outcomes and causality are usually assessed with individual level sociodemographic variables. Studies that consider only individual-level variables can suffer from residual confounding. This can result in individual variables that are unrelated to risk behaving as proxies for uncaptured information. There is a scarcity of literature on risk factors for snakebite. In this study, we evaluate the individual-level risk factors of snakebite in Sri Lanka and highlight the impact of spatial confounding on determining the individual-level risk effects. METHODS: Data was obtained from the National Snakebite Survey of Sri Lanka. This was an Island-wide community-based survey. The survey sampled 165,665 individuals from all 25 districts of the country. We used generalized linear models to identify individual-level factors that contribute to an individual's risk of experiencing a snakebite event. We fitted separate models to assess risk factors with and without considering spatial variation in snakebite incidence in the country. RESULTS: Both spatially adjusted and non-adjusted models revealed that middle-aged people, males, field workers and individuals with low level of education have high risk of snakebites. The model without spatial adjustment showed an interaction between ethnicity and income levels. When the model included a spatial adjustment for the overall snakebite incidence, this interaction disappeared and income level appeared as an independent risk factor. Both models showed similar effect sizes for gender and age. HEmployment and education showed lower effect sizes in the spatially adjusted model. CONCLUSIONS: Both individual-level characteristics and local snakebite incidence are important to determine snakebite risk at a given location. Individual level variables could act as proxies for underling residual spatial variation when environmental information is not considered. This can lead to misinterpretation of risk factors and biased estimate
Shah H, Huxley P, Elmes J, et al., 2019, Agricultural land-uses consistently exacerbate infectious disease risks in Southeast Asia, Nature Communications, Vol: 10, ISSN: 2041-1723
Agriculture has been implicated as a potential driver of human infectious diseases. However, the generality of disease-agriculture relationships has not been systematically assessed, hindering efforts to incorporate human health considerations into land-use and development policies. Here we perform a meta-analysis with 34 eligible studies and show that people who live or work in agricultural land in Southeast Asia are on average 1.74 (CI 1.47 – 2.07) times as likely to be infected with a pathogen than those unexposed. Effect sizes are greatest for exposure to oil palm, rubber, and non-poultry based livestock farming and for hookworm (OR 2.42, CI 1.56 – 3.75), malaria (OR 2.00, CI 1.46 – 2.73), Scrub typhus (OR 2.37, CI 1.41 – 3.96) and Spotted fever group diseases (OR 3.91, CI 2.61 – 5.85). In contrast, no change in infection risk is detected for faecal-oral route diseases. Although responses vary by land-use and disease types, results suggest that agricultural land uses exacerbate many infectious diseases in Southeast Asia.
Meinert E, Alturkistani A, Murray KA, et al., 2019, A case study examining the cost measurements in production and delivery of a massive open online course (MOOC) for teaching the relationship between human health and climate change, International Conference on e-Learning 2019, Publisher: IADIS Press, Pages: 1-1
A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a form of online education that makes available learning to a large number of individuals at no charge. The impact of climate change on public health has been introduced in MOOCs in various forms, for example, examining the impact of natural disasters, the increase in temperature on work productivity, and the monitoring and evaluation of health adaptation to climate change and its implications for policy. However, despite this work completed to advance understanding in both online and postgraduate education, more effort is required to provide the tools and capabilities to analyse evidence and present findings that demonstrate its impact on specific outcomes, including health and wellbeing. Although these courses are made publicly available, understanding the costs associated with their production and delivery will provide evidence to develop sustainable models for deployment of this form of citizen engagement education.
Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, et al., 2018, The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come, The Lancet, Vol: 392, Pages: 2479-2514, ISSN: 0140-6736
Murray KA, Olivero J, Roche B, et al., 2018, Pathogeography: leveraging the biogeography of human infectious diseases for global health management, Ecography, Vol: 41, Pages: 1411-1427, ISSN: 0906-7590
Biogeography is an implicit and fundamental component of almost every dimension of modern biology, from natural selection and speciation to invasive species and biodiversity management. However, biogeography has rarely been integrated into human or veterinary medicine nor routinely leveraged for global health management. Here we review the theory and application of biogeography to the research and management of human infectious diseases, an integration we refer to as ‘pathogeography’. Pathogeography represents a promising framework for understanding and decomposing the spatial distributions, diversity patterns and emergence risks of human infectious diseases into interpretable components of dynamic socio‐ecological systems. Analytical tools from biogeography are already helping to improve our understanding of individual infectious disease distributions and the processes that shape them in space and time. At higher levels of organization, biogeographical studies of diseases are rarer but increasing, improving our ability to describe and explain patterns that emerge at the level of disease communities (e.g., co‐occurrence, diversity patterns, biogeographic regionalisation). Even in a highly globalized world most human infectious diseases remain constrained in their geographic distributions by ecological barriers to the dispersal or establishment of their causal pathogens, reservoir hosts and/or vectors. These same processes underpin the spatial arrangement of other taxa, such as mammalian biodiversity, providing a strong empirical ‘prior’ with which to assess the potential distributions of infectious diseases when data on their occurrence is unavailable or limited. In the absence of quality data, generalized biogeographic patterns could provide the earliest (and in some cases the only) insights into the potential distributions of many poorly known or emerging, or as‐yet‐unknown, infectious disease risks. Encouraging more community ecologists an
Lachish S, Murray KA, 2018, The certainty of uncertainty: potential sources of bias and imprecision in disease ecology studies, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Vol: 5, ISSN: 2297-1769
Wildlife diseases have important implications for wildlife and human health, the preservation of biodiversity and the resilience ofecosystems. However, understanding disease dynamics and the impacts of pathogens in wild populations is challenging becausethese complex systems can rarely, if ever, be observed without error. Uncertainty in disease ecology studies is commonly definedin terms of either heterogeneity in detectability (due to variation in the probability of encountering, capturing, or detectingindividuals in their natural habitat) or uncertainty in disease state assignment (due to misclassification errors or incompleteinformation). In reality, however, uncertainty in disease ecology studies extends beyond these components of observation errorand can arise from multiple varied processes, each of which can lead to bias and a lack of precision in parameter estimates. Here,we present an inventory of the sources of potential uncertainty in studies that attempt to quantify disease-relevant parametersfrom wild populations (e.g. prevalence, incidence, transmission rates, force of infection, risk of infection, persistence times, anddisease-induced impacts). We show that uncertainty can arise via processes pertaining to aspects of the disease system, the studydesign, the methods used to study the system, and the state of knowledge of the system, and that uncertainties generated via oneprocess can propagate through to others because of interactions between the numerous biological, methodological andenvironmental factors at play. We show that many of these sources of uncertainty may not be immediately apparent toresearchers (for example, unidentified crypticity among vectors, hosts or pathogens, a mismatch between the temporal scale ofsampling and disease dynamics, demographic or social misclassification), and thus have received comparatively little considerationin the literature to date. Finally, we discuss the type of bias or imprecision introduced by these varied s
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.