The Anthropology and Ecology of Disease Emergence Unit is a team of social sciences researchers focusing on multiple global health problems. We are anthropologists, historians, and sociologists working in sub-Saharan Africa and in Europe and its borderlands.
Some of our projects have focused on human-animal-environment interactions and emerging diseases, including mpox. More recent investigations address how climatic changes and their consequent dislocations interact with local ecological, social, and political economic processes and practices to produce new disease emergences and epidemics. We are especially engaged in research on tickborne diseases, notably Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic fever and tickborne encephalitis.
We also conduct research to contribute to preparedness and response to epidemic outbreaks and climate-induced disasters. To that end, other unit projects examine the impact of climate change-induced disease emergence and epidemics on human populations and the environment. Our research also traces how these populations respond to health emergencies and mitigation measures. Understanding vaccine hesitancy is thus an important sub-theme of AEE’s research. Our ambition through these studies is to develop more responsive, inclusive mitigation measures to ensure their fuller public uptake.
We conduct research in close collaboration with other teams at Institut Pasteur and in the Pasteur network, as well as wide ranging international actors, including research institutes, health authorities, UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society organizations.