Environmental and socioeconomic drivers in infectious disease (Schneider, M. C. and Machado, G.; May 2018, The Lancet Planetary Health)

To respond to the current challenges that the world is facing, the integrated vision that human beings, animals, and the environment are linked has never been so important. Understanding these links is necessary to better recommend strategies to predict, prevent, respond to, and mitigate the challenges, taking into account an environmental and socioeconomic background that might not change in a short period of time, but which could worsen if we do not take action.

Several published studies have analysed the association of infectious diseases with possible environmental or geographical factors as drivers, such as precipitation, temperature, ecoregions, soil types, and altitude; as well as socioeconomic or demographic factors such as gross domestic product, poverty rate, percentage rural population, cattle raising methods, and agricultural processes. Spatial epidemiology is one method of measuring these drivers that was applied in these studies.

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