摘要：Pathogen dynamics are inseparable from the broader environmental context in whichpathogens occur. Although some pathogens of people are primarily limited to the human population,occurrences of zoonoses and vector-borne diseases are intimately linked to ecosystems. The emergence ofthese diseases is currently being driven by a variety of influences that include, among other things, changesin the human population, long-distance travel, high-intensity animal-production systems, and anthropogenicmodification of ecosystems. Anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems have both direct and indirect (food-web mediated) effects. Therefore, understanding disease risk for zoonoses is a social–ecological problem.The articles in this special feature focus on risk assessment for avian influenza. They include analyses ofthe history and epidemiological context of avian influenza; planning and policy issues relating to risk; theroles of biogeography and spatial and temporal variation in driving the movements of potential avianinfluenza carriers; approaches to quantifying risk; and an assessment of risk-related interactions amongpeople and birds in Vietnamese markets. They differ from the majority of published studies of avianinfluenza in that they emphasize unknowns and uncertainties in risk mapping and societal responses toavian influenza, rather than concentrating on known or proven facts. From a systems perspective, thedifferent aspects of social–ecological systems that are relevant to the problem of risk mapping can besummarized under the general categories of structural, spatial, and temporal components. I present someexamples of relevant system properties, as suggested by this framework, and argue that, ultimately, riskmapping for infectious disease will need to develop a more holistic perspective that includes explicitconsideration of the roles of policy, disease management, and feedbacks between ecosystems and societies
关键词：disease; framework; health; influenza; pathogen; resilience; social–ecological system
