The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases.

Outbreak risks for zoonotic and vector-borne diseases are highest in mosaic landscapes with human, livestock, and forest coexistence, influenced by ecosystem and climate factors.

• Why it matters: Understanding how human-driven environmental changes shape disease emergence is crucial for developing effective prevention strategies, yet knowledge remains limited to few systems.
• What they did: Analyzing 58,319 outbreak records across 32 diseases, the study examined 16 social and environmental drivers, accounting for detection biases, to identify key factors influencing outbreak geography.
• The result: Findings reveal that healthcare access significantly impacts outbreak reporting, and that disease drivers vary widely, emphasizing the need for tailored, ecosystem-based public health interventions and strengthened health systems.