{
  "abstract": "Emerging infectious diseases are a hallmark of the Anthropocene1,2. Human-driven ecosystem changes and human–wildlife–livestock contact can drive the emergence of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases3–5, but how much these processes shape landscapes of outbreak risk is poorly understood, beyond a few well-studied systems6–8. Here we consolidate 58,319 outbreak event records for 32 diseases and systematically test how 16 hypothesized social and environmental drivers impact outbreak geographies, while accounting for detection and reporting biases. We show that outbreak risks are typically highest in mosaic landscapes where people and livestock live alongside forests and fragmented ecosystems. These combined factors, along with long-term declines in precipitation, share strong impacts across several vector-borne diseases (for example, dengue, Lyme disease and zoonotic arboviruses). By contrast, directly transmitted zoonoses (for example, Ebola and mpox) share few common drivers, and the impacts of most other anthropogenic pressures (for example, deforestation, climate warming and agricultural intensification) vary widely between diseases. Most consistently, the observed geography of outbreaks is shaped by healthcare access: reporting declines by a median of 32% (range across diseases: 1.2–96.7%) for each additional hour’s travel time from a health facility. Our findings underscore that infectious disease spillover and emergence are multi-causal, and that no one-size-fits-all strategy can prevent epidemics and pandemics. Ecosystem-based public health interventions9 should always follow system-specific evidence, and be paired with greater investment in health systems and One Health pathogen surveillance.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK. rory.gibb@ucl.ac.uk",
    "College of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. sjryan@ufl.edu",
    "Department of Geography, Quantitative Disease Ecology and Conservation (QDEC) Laboratory, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. sjryan@ufl.edu",
    "Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. sjryan@ufl.edu",
    "Department of Health Metrics Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Paul G. Allen School for Global Health, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA",
    "Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia",
    "School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland",
    "School of Biological Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA",
    "Department of Geography, Spatial Epidemiology and Ecology Research (SEER) Laboratory, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA",
    "Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA",
    "Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Agronomía, Campus Providencia, Universidad de Las Américas, Santiago, Chile",
    "Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA",
    "Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA",
    "Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA",
    "Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK",
    "Center for Global Health Science and Security, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA",
    "Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK",
    "Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK",
    "Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand",
    "Department of Geography, Quantitative Disease Ecology and Conservation (QDEC) Laboratory, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA",
    "Department of Vector Biology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK",
    "Center for Integrated Earth System Information (CIESIN), Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK",
    "School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK",
    "Department of Global Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA",
    "Science Department, Natural History Museum, London, UK",
    "Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INABIO), Quito, Ecuador",
    "Research Group of Emerging and Neglected Diseases, Ecoepidemiology and Biodiversity, Health Science Faculty, Universidad Internacional SEK (UISEK), Quito, Ecuador",
    "Department of Animal Sciences, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands",
    "Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Virales Humanas Dr. Julio I. Maiztegui, Administración Nacional de Laboratorios e Institutos de Salud (ANLIS), Pergamino, Argentina",
    "African Synthesis Centre for Climate Change, Environment and Development (ASCEND), University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa",
    "Climate Risk Lab, African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa",
    "Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Centre for Pathogen Genomics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
    "Center for Global Health Science and Security, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. Colin.Carlson@yale.edu",
    "Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. Colin.Carlson@yale.edu",
    "Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale University School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA. Colin.Carlson@yale.edu"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 31,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Rory Gibb",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0965-1649"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Sadie J. Ryan",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4308-6321"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "David M. Pigott",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6731-4034"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "María del Pilar Fernández",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8645-2267"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Renata L. Muylaert",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6466-6210"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Gregory F. Albery",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6260-2662"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Daniel J. Becker",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4315-8628"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        9,
        10
      ],
      "name": "Jason K. Blackburn",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0928-4831"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        11
      ],
      "name": "Hernán Cáceres-Escobar",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0331-0891"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        12
      ],
      "name": "Michael Celone",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1963-2353"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        13
      ],
      "name": "Evan A. Eskew",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1153-5356"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        14
      ],
      "name": "Hannah K. Frank",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4507-181X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        15
      ],
      "name": "Barbara A. Han",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9948-3078"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        12
      ],
      "name": "Erin N. Hulland",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0525-1856"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        16
      ],
      "name": "Kate E. Jones",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5231-3293"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        17
      ],
      "name": "Rebecca Katz",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7596-431X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        18
      ],
      "name": "Adam J. Kucharski",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8814-9421"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        19,
        20
      ],
      "name": "Direk Limmathurotsakul",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7240-5320"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        21,
        10
      ],
      "name": "Catherine A. Lippi",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7988-0324"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        22
      ],
      "name": "Joshua Longbottom",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4151-9031"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        23
      ],
      "name": "Juan Fernando Martinez",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-1004-1467"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        24,
        25
      ],
      "name": "Jane P. Messina",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7829-1272"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        26
      ],
      "name": "Elaine Okanyene Nsoesie",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-9170-8714"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        27
      ],
      "name": "David W. Redding",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8615-1798"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        28,
        29
      ],
      "name": "Daniel Romero-Álvarez",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6762-6046"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        30
      ],
      "name": "Boris V. Schmid",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0452-623X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Stephanie N. Seifert",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4397-6156"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        31
      ],
      "name": "Anabel Sinchi"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        32,
        33
      ],
      "name": "Christopher H. Trisos"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        34
      ],
      "name": "Michelle Wille",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5629-0196"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        35,
        36,
        37
      ],
      "name": "Colin J. Carlson",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6960-8434"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2rkf3bg60tj6.bib",
  "cited_by": 30,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41586-026-11058-6",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13716837/",
  "id": "a2rkf3bg60tj6",
  "issns": [
    "0028-0836",
    "1476-4687"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11058-6",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2739|Zoonotic diseases and public health"
    ]
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  "openalex": "W7214065796",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13716837",
  "pmid": "42778602",
  "published": "2026-09-23",
  "publisher": "Nature Portfolio",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2rkf3bg60tj6.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:24:02Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13716837",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11058-6"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T13:21:13Z",
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      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11058-6"
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  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "openalex:2739|Zoonotic diseases and public health",
      "subfield": "epidemiology-public-health"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases",
  "title_text": "The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T13:21:15Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2rkf3bg60tj6",
  "venue": "Nature",
  "versions": []
}