The many faces of epidemiology: evolutionary epidemiology

Epidemiology Faces Its Limits

The evolutionary epidemiology of vaccination.

Vaccination leads to dramatic perturbations of the environment of parasite populations and this can have both demographic and evolutionary consequences. We present a theoretical framework for modelling the short- and long-term epidemiological and evolutionary consequences of vaccination. This framework integrates previous theoretical studies of vaccine-induced parasite evolution, and it allows ...

Epidemiology meets evolutionary ecology

The rapid expansion and increasing mobility of human populations make understanding the evolution of parasite virulence a public health priority. The potential for the swift evolution of virulence in response to changes in host ecology has motivated the integration of evolutionary ecology with epidemiological theory, as part of the emerging field of evolutionary epidemiology. Virulence is the p...

The evolutionary epidemiology of multilocus drug resistance.

The evolution of resistance to drugs is a major public health concern as it erodes the efficacy of our therapeutic arsenal against bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens. Increasingly, it is recognized that the evolution of resistance involves genetic changes at more than one locus, both in cases where multiple changes are required to obtain high-level resistance, and where compensatory changes...

Evolutionary epidemiology and the dynamics of adaptation.

The mean fitness of a population, often equal to its growth rate, measures its level of adaptation to particular environmental conditions. A better understanding of the evolution of mean fitness could thus provide a natural link between evolution and demography. Yet, after the seminal work of Fisher and its renowned "fundamental theorem of natural selection," the dynamics of mean fitness has at...