The joint program supports efforts to understand the ecological and biological mechanisms that govern relationships between human -induced environmental changes and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases.

Interdisciplinary projects funded through the EID program will study how large-scale environmental events--such as habitat destruction, biological invasion and pollution--alter the risks of viral, parasitic and bacterial diseases emerging in humans and animals. "Over the past 20 years, unprecedented rates of change in non human biodiversity have coincided with the emergence and re emergence of numerous infectious diseases around the world," said Sam Scheiner, EID program director at NSF. "The coincidence of broad-scale environmental changes and the emergence of infectious diseases may point to underlying and predictable ecological relationships."

Yet both basic and applied research in infectious disease ecology has been largely piecemeal, said Scheiner. According to infectious disease specialists and ecologists, the potential benefits of an interdisciplinary research program in this area include: development of disease transmission theory; improved understanding of unintended health effects of development projects; increased capacity to forecast outbreaks; and improved understanding of how diseases emerge and re-emerge. Previous research looked only at diseases after they reached humans or only at non-human animals. The EID program links those different components to produce a comprehensive understanding of disease transmission.

"We're trying to put scientists, public health officials and environmental planners in the driver's seat rather than in a reactive mode for disease control,
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Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation
15-Sep-2004