Research priorities for the environment, agriculture and infectious diseases of poverty, 2013.
World Health Organization.
This report provides an evaluation of challenges presented by interactions between environment, agriculture and infectious diseases of public health importance. It explores the benefits and limitations of a more systems-based approach to conceptualizing and investigating this problem.
The authors conclude that development of such an approach necessitates stronger and harmonized strategic alliances between all organizations, sectors and institutions concerned with development, environment and social justice, including public health. They argue that the agenda for public health research and practice on infectious diseases can no longer be confined to itemized and vertically differentiated approaches to their prevention, control and (perhaps) eradication. Instead, it must also encompass the large-scale environmental, demographic and social changes that characterize today’s world. This will require new types and levels of understanding, situation analyses, and interdisciplinary research and intersectoral actions to monitor and assess emerging trends and relationships.
The Reference Group identified the following top research priorities for infectious diseases of poverty in relation to environment and agriculture:
- Determine the interactions between agriculture, water use and infectious diseases of poverty.
- Assess the impacts of novel approaches such as community-led total sanitation on helminth infections.
- Assess the impacts of water management projects on disease.
- Develop and assess community-based vector-borne disease control models.
- Develop integrated preventive public health strategies for infectious diseases of poverty.
- Develop and test novel intersectoral control of neglected tropical diseases.
