Conservation not an effective tool for reducing infectious disease in people, study finds

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April 24, 2017







Conservation projects that protect forests and encourage a diversity of plants and animals can provide many benefits to humans.
But improved human health is not among those benefits ― at least when health is measured through the lens of infectious disease. That’s the main finding of a paper published April 24 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, which analyzed the relationship between infectious diseases and their environmental, demographic and economic drivers in dozens of countries over 20 years.

Zebras seen in Nairobi National Park in Kenya.Dan Salkeld

The new study found that increased biodiversity ― measured as the number of species and amount of forested land ― was not associated with reduced levels of infectious disease. In some cases, disease burdens actually increased as areas became more forested over time.
“There are a lot of great reasons for conservation, but control of infectious disease isn’t one of them,” said lead author and parasite ecologist Chelsea Wood, an assistant professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. “We’re not going to improve public health by pushing a single button. This study clearly shows that ― at the country level ― conservation is not a disease-control tool.”
Surprisingly, Wood said, the study also found that increasing urbanization reduced disease, probably because cities bring people closer to medical care and give them greater access to vaccinations, clean water and sanitation.
Even though cities crowd people together, the net benefit of their services results in reductions of infectious disease.
“It seems pretty clear that urbanization is good for people’s health ― at least when it comes to infectious disease. And that’s good news, because the world is rapidly urbanizing,” Wood said.
The researchers relied on the UW-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease database, a massive, worldwide ...

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