Spillover: The Anthropology of Emerging Infectious Diseases

Catalog description

We live in a world of increasing global awareness and public anxiety of emerging zoonotic diseases. Why do infections continue to spillover from wildlife to humans? What will the next outbreak be? Where will it emerge? Will it become a pandemic threat? Answering these questions requires exploring how our biology interacts with social, cultural, ecological, and climatic processes to influence the spillover of infections from animals to humans. This course begins with an introduction to human determinants of infectious disease that have persisted since the origins of agriculture, including: changing modes of subsistence and human settlement patterns, environmental transformation, and social inequalities. We will then explore how these processes shape contemporary pathways of zoonotic spillover and have led to the characterization and mapping of infectious disease "hotspots." The course will continue with an overview of emerging zoonoses of global health significance from a biocultural perspective. We will then narrow in on the most salient hosts and transmission pathways, focusing on evolutionary constraints and sociocultural risk factors that shape pathogen host switching. From these examples, we will look critically at the conceptual trends that have shaped our understanding of spillover events as a public health concern, with special attention to synergies and mismatches between locally and publicly perceived health risks. This course emphasizes the value of anthropological approaches in building more holistic and equitable solutions to emerging human health threats, including opportunities for applied anthropology within human health.