Course Description
The world is experiencing tremendous changes that have ramifications for numerous diseases. This course will focus on the effects of climate change, habitat loss, and other factors on the transmission of infectious and vector-borne diseases that impact wildlife or use wildlife as reservoirs. We will also discuss intervention strategies.
Athena Title
Diseases in Changing World
Prerequisite
[(BIOL 1103 or BIOL 1103E or BIOL 2103H or PBIO 1210) and BIOL 1103L] or [(BIOL 1107 or BIOL 1107E or BIOL 2107H) and BIOL 1107L]
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will provide science and non-science majors an opportunity to learn about how changes in the world can impact the risk of diseases. Most new emerging diseases of people come from animals, predominately wildlife, so it is important to understand how our actions can result in the emergence of new diseases or change the transmission of known diseases. By the end of the course, student should have an understanding of many diseases and how they are impacted by climate changes (locally and globally), habitat changes, changes in biodiversity, and even how socio-economic factors are related to diseases.
Topical Outline
The basic structure of the course will focus on selected diseases and how different drivers (e.g., climate, environmental, socio-demographic) are changing their transmission. Early classes will cover basic information on pathogens and their transmission, importance, impact, etc. Once students have been introduced to basic concepts and terms, the class will begin to cover different diseases. For example: Tick-borne pathogens are important in many parts of the world and some of our best data on the impacts of climate change are for tick-borne pathogens. Ticks are impacted by many abiotic factors (e.g., temperature, precipitation, humidity) and are thus sensitive to habitat and climate change. Mosquito-borne diseases are also very important and are similarly impacted by habitat and climate changes. Many mosquitoes are also adapted to life in urban/suburban areas so can also be impacted by socio-economic factors. Other examples that would be discussed include, but are not limited to, malaria in birds in Hawaii, a meningeal worm in moose, red tide events, coral bleaching of reef systems, distribution of plague among changing rodent populations, and variations in timing and locations of Ebola outbreaks.