Using local knowledge in emerging infectious disease research

Gaddy, Hampton Gray

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a growing global health threat. The best research protocol to date on predicting and preventing infectious disease emergence states that urgent research must commence to identify unknown human and animal pathogens. This short communication proposes that the ethnobiological knowledge of indigenous and impoverished communities can be a source of information about some of those unknown pathogens. I present the ecological and anthropological theory behind this proposal, as well as a few case studies that serve as a limited proof of concept. This paper also serves as a call to arms for the medical anthropology community. It gives a brief primer on the EID crisis and how anthropology research may be vital to limiting its havoc on global health. Local knowledge is not likely to play a major role in EID research initiatives, but the use of the incorporation of EID awareness into standard medical anthropological practice would have myriad benefits, even if no EIDs were discovered this way.