Geographic Medicine

This chapter uses a sub-discipline of medicine, known as geographic medicine, to describe how human movements contribute to the transmission of parasites on spatial scales that exceed the limits of its natural habitat. Traditionally, public health programs have focused on the health of populations, whereas the practice of medicine has focused on the health of individuals. It should be noted, however, that the population health management owes much to the effective delivery of clinical care. This chapter demonstrates how public health is intimately linked to patient care through human movement. Nearly a century ago, people typically did not develop a disease where it is contracted or even close to that place. Today, daily travel is a common way of life in modern metropolitan areas. Large, localized mosquito populations in areas that people visit regularly may be both reservoirs and hubs of infection, even if people only pass through those locations briefly. By examining of the role of human movement across different scales, this chapter examines how public health communities can use information on pathogen transmission to increase the effectiveness of disease prevention programs and clinical care.