Publications by authors named "Meghan E Howard"
Background: Billions of people living in poverty are at risk of environmentally mediated infectious diseases-that is, pathogens with environmental reservoirs that affect disease persistence and control and where environmental control of pathogens can reduce human risk. The complex ecology of these diseases creates a global health problem not easily solved with medical treatment alone.
Methods: We quantified the current global disease burden caused by environmentally mediated infectious diseases and used a structural equation model to explore environmental and socioeconomic factors associated with the human burden of environmentally mediated pathogens across all countries.
Article Synopsis
- The text discusses progress made by sustainable development practitioners in reducing human infectious diseases while promoting conservation through a systematic literature review of 46 proposed solutions.
- Some solutions showed medium to high-quality evidence of success, but there were significant evidence gaps indicating a need for further research.
- Stakeholders are encouraged to use the Review and an online database to discover, customize, or innovate new win-win interventions.
The original paper was published without unique DOIs for GBIF occurrence downloads. These have now been inserted as references 70-76, and the error has been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA global test of ecoregions.
Nat Ecol Evol
December 2018
A foundational paradigm in biological and Earth sciences is that our planet is divided into distinct ecoregions and biomes demarking unique assemblages of species. This notion has profoundly influenced scientific research and environmental policy. Given recent advances in technology and data availability, however, we are now poised to ask whether ecoregions meaningfully delimit biological communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF