Climate Change and Infectious Diseases
A special issue of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (ISSN 2414-6366). This special issue belongs to the section "Infectious Diseases".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2019)
Special Issue Editor
Interests: climate change; infectious disease epidemiology; public health; HIV; TB; climate change adaptation; emerging infectious diseases; health inequalities
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The climate is continuing to change, with land and sea temperatures increasing; precipitation patterns changing; sea ice extent shrinking; glacier volume and snow cover declining; sea levels rising; and climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, heavy precipitation and droughts increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity.
Climate change is also expected to alter infectious disease transmission, either directly or more indirectly through these environmental impacts. Specifically, climate change can shift the distribution of vector-, food- or waterborne diseases and intensify or reduce those impacts on public health. As such, climate change can be seen as a risk multiplier that acts in concert with existing socio-economic vulnerabilities and other drivers of disease.
However, the field suffers from a number of challenges. One is the question of attribution, which presents a number of methodological hurdles. While extreme weather events can statistically be linked to climate change, quantifying the contribution of climate change on individual events is problematic, no less the relative contribution of climate change to the disease burden. Another challenge relates to accounting for population vulnerabilities and resilience. Models of infectious disease under climate change scenarios may over- or under-estimate public health impacts if they do not address socioeconomic contexts, while doing so may incorporate additional uncertainties into the study.
This Special Issue in Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease aims to advance the field of infectious disease impacts of climate change with topical contributions. It aims to synthesise the state-of-the-art in the field from the perspective of public health, while also addressing the technical challenges. This issue welcomes original, quantitative or qualitative studies and is intended to include papers that measure, monitor and describe infectious disease impacts. Of particular interest are decision-support tools for identifying and prioritizing risks through surveillance, vulnerability, impact and adaptation assessments. Interventions on climate-sensitive infectious disease risks are also of interest, particularly rigorous cost-effectiveness and program evaluations. Monitoring environmental precursors of disease can be used as early warning for health threats and the application of these tools is of great interest to public health practitioners. This Special Issue represents an effort to capture current developments in the field and provide a forum for cutting edge contributions to the literature.
Prof. Dr. Jan C. Semenza
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- climate change
- climate variability
- global environmental change
- infectious disease
- food and waterborne diseases
- vector-borne diseases
