What is meant by the ecology of a disease?

Question

Disease ecology: what does it entail?

Answer 1

Ecology is the study of the interactions between an organism and its environment.

For disease, this is no different. Someone studing the ecology of a disease may look into what environmental factors cause a disease to proliferate and what cause it to die off. They may be interested in chains of transmission - what creatures can get a disease and how do they pass it along. Or they may investigate exactly what symptomology a disease presents in one or a variety of hosts.

Since humans tend to be human-centric (nothing wrong with this, really) most of the studies of this nature tend to be aimed at detecting and preventing diseases environmentally that affect us and the things we value. Where a pathologist looks specifically at a creatures organs or tissues to find indications of disease, someone studying disease ecology might look at the average temperature, soil acidity, or migration patterns.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

I believe you mean etiology and it what it means is what factors cause a disease to occur.