Guest edited by Xiao-Ming Shi, Kristie L. Ebi, Shi-Lu Tong, Patrick L. Kinney, Peng Gong and Xiao-Nong Zhou
A thematic series in Infectious Diseases of Poverty.
Global climate change is one of the major global health threats. Climate change can influence the distribution of vetor-, food-, or water-borne infectious diseases, and does so by synergistically influencing both population vulnerability and the complex driving factors of disease transmission. Therefore, scholars in health, environment, ecology, and other fields have carried out extensive studies on measuring, monitoring, and describing the influence of climate change on infectious diseases. It is unquestionably understood that extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity with climate change, but it remains challenging to quantify the influence of climate change on an individual extreme event, and on downstream impacts on infectious disease burdens. Quantifying population vulnerability and resilience is also challenging in this setting.
The purpose of this thematic series from the journal Infectious Disease of Poverty is to synthesize the state-of-the-art from the perspective of public health in addressing the technical challenges in this important field, including the associations of climate factors with infectious diseases; the environmental transmission pattern of infectious diseases; establishment of the forecasting and early warning system of climate and infectious diseases; the intrinsic connection between climate change and health; the interference and corresponding health benefit estimation. In addition, we emphasize interdependence between humans and nonhuman species in complex ecosystems from the perspective of “One Health” approach.
