Frontiers in Infectious Disease Ecology: Meeting: Building on Success - Washington, D.C.; April 19-21, 2010

This grant will support a three-day workshop to take a broad overview of the field of infectious disease ecology and assess where the field will be headed in the next 5 to 10 years. The field of infectious disease ecology is relatively young. Although there is identifiable research that extends back at least several decades, it is only in the past 10 to 15 years that there has been a surge in interest with new journals being established and a large increase in research. Now is an appropriate time for such an overview assessment. Issues to be explored include: methodological developments over the past 10 years, limitations in accomplishments over that time, what new tools and disciplines are needed, and how these might allow greater insights into disease dynamics and control in a changing world.

Improving our knowledge of infectious disease ecology has important implications for public health, agro-economics, and the management of wildlife and natural systems. The workshop will assess previous successes in these issues and identify novel approaches and interdisciplinary insights that could build on our understanding of disease dynamics and be improved means of predicting, preventing and intervening with disease outbreaks.