Introduction to infectious diseases of people, animals and agriculture in changing landscapes and climates. Applies the One Health framework to understand linkages between human activity and disease, and how multi-disciplinary approaches can inform disease management.
Athena Title
Global Change and Disease
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to recall fundamental concepts in infectious diseases (including how they are transmitted, metrics of their spread and impact, and common approaches for management) and major forms of global environmental change (including climate change, land use change, environmental pollution and global transportation networks).
By the end of this course, students will be able to connect major forms of global environmental change to infectious disease impacts on people, wildlife, domestic animals and crops. Students will evaluate multiple lines of evidence for causal links between global change and disease, including interpretation of graphs, maps and mathematical models of disease spread.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply the One Health framework to analyze real-world case studies of infectious disease under global change. Students will visualize interconnections between human, wildlife and planetary health, and assess the credibility and support for these connections through written synthesis of both quantitative and qualitative information.
By the end of this course, students will evaluate and interpret approaches for predicting, preventing and managing infectious diseases under global change, applying multiple disciplinary, cultural and ethical perspectives to identify challenges and develop solutions.
Students will reflect on how different cultural norms and social inequality, including their own identities, views and action, shape how humans affect, and are affected by environmental change and disease exposure.
Topical Outline
1. Fundamental topics in Global Change and Infectious Disease
a. Types of parasites and pathogens, and how they are transmitted
b. Case studies of major diseases of people, wildlife and agriculture
c. Dimensions of global change and its impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem function and climate regulation
d. The One Health Paradigm
2. Concepts and case studies linking Global Change to Infectious Disease Impacts
a. Climate warming and mosquito-borne diseases
b. Drought, famine, and susceptibility to disease; disease-poverty feedbacks
c. Habitat loss at the human-wildlife interface: Neglected Tropical Diseases in regions experiencing deforestation
d. Global transportation networks: importation pathways of parasites and their hosts
e. Livestock and poultry farming: Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza impacts on human livelihoods, farmed animal health and wildlife populations
f. Farming, horticulture and silviculture: disease threats to crop monocultures and forests
g. Urbanization effects on wildlife physiology and behavior, human-wildlife conflict and zoonotic spillover: bat-borne viruses as a case study
h. Environmental pollution - effects of contaminants on disease susceptibility and impacts
3. Prediction, prevention, and management - challenges and opportunities
a. Can biodiversity conservation reduce disease risk to people and domestic animals?
b. Climate change mitigation and disease: nature-based solutions
c. Breaking cycles of poverty and disease
d. Reforestation as a tool to reduce zoonotic spillover
e. Breeding for disease resistance in crops and livestock
