Landscape epidemiology draws some of its roots from the field of landscape ecology (1). Just as the discipline of landscape ecology is concerned with analyzing both pattern and process in ecosystems across time and space, landscape epidemiology can be used to analyze both risk patterns and environmental risk factors. This field emerges from the theory that most vectors, hosts and pathogens are commonly tied to the landscape as environmental determinants control their distribution and abundance (2). In 1966, Pavlovsky introduced the concept of natural nidality or focality, defined by the idea that microscale disease foci are determined by the entire ecosystem (3). With the recent availability of new computing technologies such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, statistical methods including spatial statistics and theories of landscape ecology, the concept of landscape epidemiology has been applied analytically to a variety of disease system, including malaria, hantavirus, Lyme disease and Chagas' disease (1).

Key References

1. Kitron U. Landscape ecology and epidemiology of vector-borne diseases: Tools for spatial analysis. Journal of Medical Entomology 1998;35:435-445.

2. Pavlovsky EN. Natural nidality of transmissible diseases, with special reference to the landscape epidemiology of zooanthroponse. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1966.

3. Galuzo IG. Landscape epidemiology (epizootiology). Advances in Veterinary Science & Comparative Medicine 1975;19:73-96.

4. Brownstein, J.S., Rosen, H., Purdy, D., Miller, J., Merlino, M., Mostashari, F., Fish, D., 2002. Spatial analysis of West Nile Virus: Rapid risk assessment of an introduced vector-borne zoonosis. Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. 2(3): 157-164.