Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'm shocked that no one has previously reviewed this. In a sense, it is *the* classic text of disease ecology, binding together decades worth of papers and theory into a single, coherent volume.
May was trained as a physicist, and Anderson as a mathematician. They are a singular duo in ecology, publishing a series of very high impact papers that re-shaped the way many thought the interactions between hosts and parasites, drawing analogies with popular predator-prey systems. In addition, they drew attention to interactions between ecology and evolution.
One of the things that I most like about their work in general, and this book in particular, is the clear narrative structure. There are abundant equations, but each is explained with clear English, and each one's importance in the overall "story" is plainly laid out. I found it to be *almost* (though not quite) armchair pleasure reading. Much of the math isn't exceptionally difficult, and can be skipped, but those looking for detail will find plenty.
It's beginning to get a little old in what is missing, but this work remains a firm foundation for disease ecology, which in itself remains a cornerstone of modern population and community ecology research.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control (Oxford Science Publications)
This book deals with infectious diseases -- viral, bacterial, protozoan and helminth -- in terms of the dynamics of their interaction with host populations. The book combines mathematical models with extensive use of epidemiological and other data. This analytic framework is highly useful for the evaluation of public health strategies aimed at controlling or eradicating particular infections. Such a framework is increasingly important in light of the widespread concern for primary health care programs aimed at such diseases as measles, malaria, river blindness, sleeping sickness, and schistosomiasis, and the advent of AIDS/HIV and other emerging viruses. Throughout the book, the mathematics is used as a tool for thinking clearly about fundamental and applied problems having to do with infectious diseases. The book is divided into two parts, one dealing with microparasites (viruses, bacteria and protozoans) and the other with macroparasites (helminths and parasitic arthropods). Each part begins with simple models, developed in a biologically intuitive way, and then goes on to develop more complicated and realistic models as tools for public health planning. The book synthesizes previous work in this rapidly growing field (much of which is scattered between the ecological and the medical literature) with a good deal of new material.
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