Global analysis of environmental and socioeconomic factors associated with human burden of environmentally mediated pathogens

This repository contains four datasets that support repeatability of the
analyses in the Sokolow et al. paper published in Lancet Planetary Health.
Descriptions of the four datasets are included in the metadata document.
This study found that 80% of pathogen species known to infect humans are
environmentally mediated, causing about 40% of contemporary
infectious-disease burden (global loss of 130 million years of healthy
life annually). More than 91% of this environmentally-mediated disease
burden occurs in tropical countries, and the poorest countries carry the
highest burdens across all latitudes. There were weak associations between
disease burden and biodiversity or agricultural land use at the global
scale. In contrast, the proportion of people with rural poor livelihoods
in a country was a strong proximate indicator of environmentally mediated
infectious disease burden there. Political stability and wealth were
associated with improved sanitation, better health care, and lower
proportions of rural poverty, indirectly resulting in lower burdens of
environmentally mediated infections."