UNDER THE WEATHER CLIMATE, ECOSYSTEMS, AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE pptx

[...]... as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases become actively involved with the USGCRP Finally, the committee wishes to emphasize that even if we are able to develop a strong understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious diseases, and in turn, are able to create effective disease early warning systems, there... medicine and its legacy for our current understanding of climate and infectious disease linkages, and reviews some of the important historical milestones in the fields of meteorology and infectious disease epidemiology ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE Many early civilizations related weather to the appearance of disease and topography to the persistence of disease in a region or population The most... Riley, 1987) THE EARLY MERGER OF METEOROLOGY AND MEDICINE The quests to understand weather, climate, and disease all posed significant methodological challenges The Scientific Revolution brought mathematics to 14 UNDER THE WEATHER the study of natural phenomena, with the invention of instruments such as barometers, hygrometers, thermometers, microscopes, telescopes, water pumps, rain gauges, and devices... comprehensive understanding of disease dynamics WEATHER AND CLIMATE: BACKGROUND CONCEPTS Climate Variability The distinction between weather and climate is not always appreciated but is important to understand in the context of the topics discussed in this report Weather refers to the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, characterized by meteorological factors such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, and. .. studying these associations and their underlying mechanisms, we hope to gain insights into the factors that drive the emergence and seasonal/interannual variations in contemporary epidemic diseases and, possibly, to understand the potential future disease impacts of long-term climate change The U.S federal agencies entrusted with guarding the nation’s health and the environment, along with other concerned... magnitude of future disease threats Instead, the focus is on elucidating the current state of our understanding and the factors that, at present, may limit the feasibility of predictive models and effective early warning systems The following is a summary of the committee’s key findings and recommendations: KEY FINDINGS: LINKAGES BETWEEN CLIMATE AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES Weather fluctuations and seasonal-to-interannual... Change The CEIDH committee has followed the progress of these other activities, and in fact some committee members participated in them However, the committee’s final deliberations, and the recommendations and conclusions contained in this report, were developed independently of these other activities As the report title implies, this study explores the linkages among climate, ecosystems, infectious diseases,... agents Such changes may foster the emergence of new infectious disease threats There are potential pitfalls in extrapolating climate and disease relationships from one spatial/temporal scale to another The relationships between 4 UNDER THE WEATHER climate and infectious disease are often highly dependent upon local-scale parameters, and it is not always possible to extrapolate these relationships meaningfully... climate can affect infectious disease patterns because disease agents (viruses, bacteria, and other parasites) and their vectors (such as insects or rodents) are clearly sensitive to temperature, moisture, and other ambient environmental conditions The best evidence for this sensitivity is the characteristic geographic distribution and seasonal variation of many infectious diseases Weather and climate affect... ecosystems, and infectious disease In the first two sections, background concepts related to climate and to infectious disease dynamics are reviewed to provide a foundation for those who are not already familiar with these topics The third section provides an overview of the different ways that climate can influence the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents, and the fourth section reviews other . BETWEEN CLIMATE, ECOSYSTEMS, AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE 20 Weather and Climate: Background Concepts, 20 Infectious Disease Dynamics: Background Concepts, 28 Weather/ Climate. dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress