Epidemiology has met ecology in a new report from the American Academy of Microbiology.
Based on a colloquium the academy convened last year, the report discusses the effects of weather and climate factors on the incidence of infectious disease.
"We can't just focus on the microbe anymore," said Jonathan Patz, MD, of the Johns Hopkins University Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change. "It is not just a simple relationship between weather variables and pathogens. We need to connect existing databases on such factors as land use patterns, deforestation, and soil moisture to public health outcomes."
The report is available on the Internet at http://www.asmusa.org/acasrc/aca1.htm.
