logo

Do scientists think habitat destruction is resulting in more diseases jumping from animals to humans?

Friday, May 1, 2020
By William Boger
YES

Zoonotic diseases, illnesses that jump from animals to humans, have caused many of history's major epidemics. As humans continue to encroach on wildlife habitats, scientists have predicted increasing risks. Pathogens appear more likely to spread to human populations in environments with high biodiversity experiencing land-use changes such as deforestation, agriculture or urbanization.

"There are just so many more of us, in every environment," Kate Jones, an ecologist, explained to Scientific American. "We are going into largely undisturbed places and being exposed more and more."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email