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Since the beginning of this century there has been a growing interest in the study of the epidemiology and population dynamics of infectious disease agents. Mathematical and statistical methods have played an important role in the development of this field and a large, and sophisticated, literature exists which is concerned with the theory of epidemiological processes in popu lations and the dynamics of epidemie and endemie disease phenomena. Much ofthis literature is, however, rather formal and abstract in character, and the field has tended to become rather detached from its empirical base. Relatively little of the literature, for example, deals with the practical issues which are of major concern to public health workers. Encouragingly, in recent years there are signs of an increased awareness amongst theoreticians of the need to confront predictions with observed epidemiological trends, and to pay elose attention to the biological details of the interaction between host and disease agent. This trend has in part been stimulated by the early work of Ross and Macdonald, on the transmission dynamics of tropical parasitic infections, but a further impetus has been the recent advances made by ecologists in blending theory and observation in the study of plant and animal populations.
Initially stimulated by a scholarly workshop convened in Singapore in late 2004, and written over the subsequent 18 months, this volume considers the potentially lethal pattern of infectious disease emergence in Asia. It studies linkages to changes in patterns of human activity, including but not limited to shifts in the distribution and concentration of human settlements and the patterns of movement within and between them. It explores the causes and consequences of infectious agents in the region historically and examines such newly emergent natural biological threats as SARS and avian influenza.Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, the book contains analyses rooted in the social, physical and biological sciences as well as works which span these fields. Among the issues considered are the ways in which changes in our natural and built environment, social and economic pressures, shifting policies and patterns of collaboration in responding to disease impact upon our approach to and success in containing serious threats.Infection control has moved beyond the province of clinical experts, epidemiologists and microbiologists, into the mathematics of epidemic prevention and control, as well as the overall physical and human ecology and historical contexts of emerging infections. Not only does such a broad approach enable appreciation of complex forces driving growing epidemic risks in Asia today, it also reveals the importance and relevance of population dynamics, as well as the global urgency of alleviating unsatisfactory health conditions in Asia. The topic and the broad approach has international appeal beyond the region as many of these forces operate throughout the world.
A combination of ecology and epidemiology in natural, unmanaged, animal and plant populations.
This book deals with infectious diseases -- viral, bacterial, protozoan and helminth -- in terms of the dynamics of their interaction with host populations. The book combines mathematical models with extensive use of epidemiological and other data. This analytic framework is highly useful for the evaluation of public health strategies aimed at controlling or eradicating particular infections. Such a framework is increasingly important in light of the widespread concern for primary health care programs aimed at such diseases as measles, malaria, river blindness, sleeping sickness, and schistosomiasis, and the advent of AIDS/HIV and other emerging viruses. Throughout the book, the mathematics is used as a tool for thinking clearly about fundamental and applied problems having to do with infectious diseases. The book is divided into two parts, one dealing with microparasites (viruses, bacteria and protozoans) and the other with macroparasites (helminths and parasitic arthropods). Each part begins with simple models, developed in a biologically intuitive way, and then goes on to develop more complicated and realistic models as tools for public health planning. The book synthesizes previous work in this rapidly growing field (much of which is scattered between the ecological and the medical literature) with a good deal of new material.
This book is the first one in which basic demographic models are rigorously formulated by using modern age-structured population dynamics, extended to study real-world population problems. Age structure is a crucial factor in understanding population phenomena, and the essential ideas in demography and epidemiology cannot be understood without mathematical formulation; therefore, this book gives readers a robust mathematical introduction to human population studies. In the first part of the volume, classical demographic models such as the stable population model and its linear extensions, density-dependent nonlinear models, and pair-formation models are formulated by the McKendrick partial differential equation and are analyzed from a dynamical system point of view. In the second part, mathematical models for infectious diseases spreading at the population level are examined by using nonlinear differential equations and a renewal equation. Since an epidemic can be seen as a nonlinear renewal process of an infected population, this book will provide a natural unification point of view for demography and epidemiology. The well-known epidemic threshold principle is formulated by the basic reproduction number, which is also a most important key index in demography. The author develops a universal theory of the basic reproduction number in heterogeneous environments. By introducing the host age structure, epidemic models are developed into more realistic demographic formulations, which are essentially needed to attack urgent epidemiological control problems in the real world.
Social Ecology of Infectious Diseases explores how human activities enable microbes to disseminate and evolve, thereby creating favorable conditions for the diverse manifestations of communicable diseases. Today, infectious and parasitic diseases cause about one-third of deaths and are the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The speed that changes in human behavior can produce epidemics is well illustrated by AIDS, but this is only one of numerous microbial threats whose severity and spread are determined by human behaviors. In this book, forty experts in the fields of infectious diseases, the life sciences and public health explore how demography, geography, migration, travel, environmental change, natural disaster, sexual behavior, drug use, food production and distribution, medical technology, training and preparedness, as well as governance, human conflict and social dislocation influence current and likely future epidemics. - Provides essential understanding of current and future epidemics - Presents a crossover perspective for disciplines in the medical and social sciences and public policy, including public health, infectious diseases, population science, epidemiology, microbiology, food safety, defense preparedness and humanitarian relief - Creates a new perspective on ecology based on the interaction of microbes and human activities
for the design of control programs; in extreme cases (as dis cussed below, by Fine et al. , this volume, and elsewhere) it can happen that immunization programs, although they protect vaccinated individuals, actually increase the overall incidence of a particular disease. The possibility that many nonhuman animal populations may be regulated by parasitic infections is another topic where it may be argued that conventional disciplinary boundaries have retarded investigation. While much ecological research has been devoted to exploring the extent to which competition or predator-prey interactions may regulate natural populations or set their patterns of geographical distribution, few substan tial studies have considered the possibility that infectious diseases may serve as regulatory agents (1,8). On the other hand, the many careful epidemiological studies of the trans mission and maintenance of parasitic infections in human and other animal populations usually assume the host population density to be set by other considerations, and not dynamically engaged with the disease (see, for example, (1,2)). With all these considerations in mind, the Dahlem Workshop from which this book derives aimed to weave strands together -- testing theoretical analysis against empirical facts and patterns, and identifying outstanding problems -- in pursuit of a better un derstanding of the overall population biology of parasitic in fections. For the purpose of the workshop, the term "parasite" was de fined widely to include viruses, bacteria, protozoans, fungi, and helminths.