Drawing Conclusions: What Preventative Measures Will Be Effective in Preventing the Next Epidemic?

Now that I've outlined some of the connections between disease and ecological change, the question remains; what can we do?

The figure below depicts pathways by which climate and ecological changes affect health and
concurrent direct-acting and modifying (conditioning) influences of environmental, social and
health-system factors.

As you can see, several factors can have profound influences on the overall health of a population.  I personally believe that if we can offer alternative food sources and provide incentives to dissuade people from clearcutting forested areas we may be able to help contain outbreaks.  We not only need to work with the smaller communities in these regions but we also need to work with the local governments to institute policy changes that may help to cull disease outbreaks.  One specific example is the emergence and spread of Dengue virus throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world.  Below is a diagram illustrating how mosquito vector based diseases can spread via landscape modification for agricultural and industrial use:

Although Dengue isn't depicted here; the information is still very relevant to the virus, as the mosquito breeding ground is the same.  This diagram illustrates three major landscape changes; deforestation, mining development and agriculture and how they relate to mosquito breeding.  One change that could help to lessen the impact would be covering agricultural irrigation ditches with mosquito netting.  They did this in Central America and researches showed a statistically significant drop in mosquito born diseases.

I think that one of the most effective forms of disease prevention we can employ is education.  Many people are unaware of any connection between environmental degradation and disease amplification but with more vigilance and education, hopefully this can change.  

The example I used to create the powerpoint diagram can be found here (the figure is original):

Confalonieri, U., B. Menne, R. Akhtar, K.L. Ebi, M. Hauengue, R.S. Kovats, B. Revich and A. Woodward, 2007: Human health. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 391-431.

Mosquito Diagram:


Patz et al, Ecosystems and Human Well Being, Vol. 1, 2005; Human Health: Ecosystem Regulation of Infectious Diseases, pp 319-451, chapter 14