Climate Change and Infectious Disease Dynamics

Authors

Raina K. Plowright, Pennsylvania State University
Paul C. Cross, U.S. Geological Survey Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Gary M. Tabor, Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Emily Almberg, Pennsylvania State University
Leslie Bienen, Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Peter J. Hudson, Pennsylvania State University

Date of this Version

2012

Citation

Published in New Directions in Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases in Ecological Health, edited by A. Alonso Aguirre, Richard S. Ostfield, and Peter Daszak (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Comments

U.S. Government Work

Abstract

The International Panel on Climate Change has made an unequivocal case that the earth's climate is changing in profound ways, and that human activities are contributing significantly to climate disruption (IPCC 2007). The weight of evidence demonstrates warming global temperatures, changing patterns of precipitation, and increasing climate variability, with more extreme events. Thus, the physical underpinnings of ecology are changing, with pervasive effects on disease dynamics. Interactions among environment, hosts, and pathogens drive disease processes, and climate change will influence every interaction in this triad, directly and indirectly.