Population Mobility and Infectious Disease (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780387476674)

This book moves beyond traditional behavioral and demographic theories of disease diffusion to focus on larger issues of social ecology and public health. With depth rarely seen in the international literature, it explores the complex and varied roles of mobile, transient, and displaced populations in the worldwide spread of airborne, waterborne, and sexually transmitted infections. The book argues that while biomedical events cause disease, social forces such as poverty and marginalization magnify them by giving them new opportunities to take hold. Population mobility -- either voluntary or forced -- brings contact between populations with different disease prevalence rates; outbreaks in turn are compounded by inequalities in access to medical care. From Katrina to Darfur, and from influenza to AIDS, an expert panel of health and social scientists bring the socioeconomic context of epidemics into clear focus.