The vector-borne Zika virus joins avian influenza, Ebola, and yellow fever as recent public health crises threatening pandemicity.By a combination of stochastic modeling and economic geography, this book proposes two key causes together explain the explosive spread of the worst of the vector-borne outbreaks.Ecosystems in which such pathogens are largely controlled by environmental stochasticity are being drastically streamlined by both agribusiness-led deforestation and def...

This volume compiles five papers modeling the effects of neoliberal economics on the emergence of Ebola and its aftermath. Neoliberalism is currently the world’s primary economic philosophy. It centers international relations around globalizing laissez-faire economics for multinational companies, promoting free trade, deregulating economic markets, and shifting state expenditures in favor of private property. The multidisciplinary teams represented here place both Ebola Makona, the Zaire E...

The Skeptical Environmentalist challenges widely held beliefs that the environmental situation is getting worse and worse. The author, himself a former member of Greenpeace, is critical of the way in which many environmental organisations make selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence. Using the best available statistical information from internationally recognised research institutes, Bjørn Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental problems that feature ...

Endemic and enzootic zoonoses cause about a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year, and emerging zoonoses are a rising threat to global health. Zoonoses – pathogenic organisms such as bacteria or viruses which we share with animals – cause more than 60% of human infectious diseases, and have been responsible for some of the most devastating disease outbreaks in recent years, including HIV, Ebola, and SARS. However, despite their huge, and rising, impact on hum...

Parasites have evolved independently in numerous animal lineages, and they now make up a considerable proportion of the biodiversity of life. Not only do they impact humans and other animals in fundamental ways, but in recent years they have become a powerful model system for the study of ecology and evolution, with practical applications in disease prevention. Here, in a thoroughly revised and updated edition of his influential earlier work, Robert Poulin provides an evolutionary ecologis...

This book traces the social and environmental determinants of human infectious diseases from the Neolithic to the present day. Despite recent high profile discoveries of new pathogens, the major determinants of these emerging infections are ancient and recurring. These include changing modes of subsistence, shifting populations, environmental disruptions, and social inequalities. The recent labeling of the term "re-emerging infections" reflects a re-emergence, not so much of the diseases t...

Laboratory Animal Welfare provides a comprehensive, up-to-date look into the new science of animal welfare within laboratory research. Animals specifically considered include rodents, cats and dogs, nonhuman primates, agricultural animals, avian animals and aquatic animals. The book examines the impact of experiment design and environment on animal welfare, as well as emergency situations and euthanasia practices. Readers will benefit from a review of regulations and policy guidelines conc...

Learn the foundations of climate science and human healthGlobal Climate Change and Human Health examines the environmental crisis from a public health and clinical health perspective, giving students and clinicians the information they need to prepare for the future of health care. Edited by George Luber, associate director for climate change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Jay Lemery, associate professor at the University of Colorad...

A holistic and comprehensive account of the nature of the transition from hunting to farming in prehistory. It addresses for the first time the main bioarchaeological aspects such as changes in mobility, behaviour, diet and population dynamics.This book is of major interest to the relevant audience since it offers for the first time a global perspective on the bioarchaeology of the transition to agriculture. It includes contributions from world-class researchers, with a particular ...

A compelling argument of how human health is adversely affected by our poor treatment of non-human animals. The author contents that in order to successfully confront the 21st Century's health challenges, we need to broaden the definition of the word 'public' in public health to include non-human animals.

This textbook provides an overview of the major environmental policy issues, past and present, and explains the interplay among law, science, and advocacy as related to environmental policymaking in the United States and abroad.Environmental Policy and Public Health examines the main sources of pollution and threats to environmental integrity and explores the consequences of pollution on the environment and the population. Throughout the book, noted environmental policy expert Will...

A Companion to the Anthropology of Environmental Health presents a collection of readings that utilize a medical anthropological approach to explore the interface of humans and the environment in the shaping of health and illness around the world.Features the latest ethnographic research from around the world related to the multiple impacts of the environment on health and of societies on their environmentsIncludes contributions from international medical a...