YSPH EMD Seminar Series: "A socio-ecological perspective on preventing pandemics"

On an increasingly connected planet, disease outbreaks are more likely to amplify into epidemics and pandemics that threaten human health and biodiversity conservation. Preceding their emergence into new hosts, these pathogens exist within complex biological and cultural systems composed of reciprocal interactions between pathogens and their hosts in a changing environment. Predicting how current and future changes to these systems place people and animals at risk from emerging pathogens—and the best ways to manage and mitigate these risks—is one of the most pressing challenges facing efforts to prevent outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. This talk will discuss how an improved and more holistic understanding of the processes that lead to pathogen spillover could be used to help prevent future pandemics.