PREEMPT
Project on Zoonotic Pathogens
Are there any combinations of (categories of) features of city landscapes (broadly defined across fields/ descriptors) so overpowering that no additional factors really have any influence on pathogen (re)emergence risks?
Zoonotic pathogens can threaten human well-being, especially in densely populated areas where humans and wildlife frequently come into contact. Observations of concordant global trends of greater pathogen prevalence and disease incidence with urbanization have generated concerns that the risk of pathogen transmission- and thus the likelihood for disease outbreaks- is increasing in part because cities are becoming larger and more populous worldwide. Yet the nature of pathogen transmission risk in urban and urbanizing landscapes remains unclear. Evidence of heterogeneous distributions of pathogens and hosts suggests that associated transmission risk is highly variable within cities. Thus the potential risk of pathogen spillover may also be heterogeneously distributed, with hotspots of outbreak risk localized across urban landscapes. Incidences of outbreaks and spread would constitute conditions where complex, socioecological tipping points have been surpassed. Concordant, geographically explicit comparisons of host and pathogen assemblages (i.e., meta-communities) could elevate understanding of outbreak risk, as pathogen pool diversity and human activities are key factors in predicting pathogen transmission. Combining field surveys with modeling to reveal the scale of host-pathogen-human associations also would help better define transmission risk and shed light on whether proactive measures (e.g., control of host populations, landscape management) can be taken to reduce spillover, and thus provide practical guidance for improving pathogen surveillance programs.
Figure reproduced from our team's first paper!
Team Members
(alphabetical)
Publications & Products
Our Team talked a lot about what would constitute evidence that we could attribute an outbreak spreading to particular features of a scenario and we realized we can't be the first folks to need to figure this out.
We worked together to propose an evidentiary framework for outbreak epidemiology.
We are excited that our first paper presenting this work is under review!
Until it's published, please take a look at our preprint.