Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 24, Issue 4, Pages 829-846Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13675
Keywords
Arthropod; colonialism; disease ecology; environment; malaria; mosquito; plague; trypanosomiasis; vector-borne disease; yellow fever
Categories
Funding
- Stanford Introductory Seminars Program
- Bio 2N: 'Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease in a Changing World'
- National Science Foundation (NSF) [DEB-1518681, DEB-2011147]
- National Institutes of Health (National Institute of General Medical Sciences R35 MIRA grant) [R35GM133439]
- Helman Scholarship
- Terman Fellowship
- King Center for Global Development
- NSF (CNH grant) [DEB-1716698]
- Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State University
- Illich-Sadowsky Fellowship through the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship program
- Stanford Data Science Scholars program
- Environmental Venture Program from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
- Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, Global Development and Poverty (GDP) Initiative
- Stanford Graduate Fellowship
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship [1650114, 1650042]
- Ric Weiland Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities and Sciences
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Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) have far-reaching impacts beyond human morbidity and mortality, shaping human history through mechanisms such as demographic impacts, differential effects on populations, and weaponization for power hierarchies. By examining case studies from different diseases and time periods, it is evident that VBDs influence society and culture in diverse ways.
Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are embedded within complex socio-ecological systems. While research has traditionally focused on the direct effects of VBDs on human morbidity and mortality, it is increasingly clear that their impacts are much more pervasive. VBDs are dynamically linked to feedbacks between environmental conditions, vector ecology, disease burden, and societal responses that drive transmission. As a result, VBDs have had profound influence on human history. Mechanisms include: (1) killing or debilitating large numbers of people, with demographic and population-level impacts; (2) differentially affecting populations based on prior history of disease exposure, immunity, and resistance; (3) being weaponised to promote or justify hierarchies of power, colonialism, racism, classism and sexism; (4) catalysing changes in ideas, institutions, infrastructure, technologies and social practices in efforts to control disease outbreaks; and (5) changing human relationships with the land and environment. We use historical and archaeological evidence interpreted through an ecological lens to illustrate how VBDs have shaped society and culture, focusing on case studies from four pertinent VBDs: plague, malaria, yellow fever and trypanosomiasis. By comparing across diseases, time periods and geographies, we highlight the enormous scope and variety of mechanisms by which VBDs have influenced human history.
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