Tourism has become the world's largest industry, according to the World Tourism Organization; no surprise when one considers that it incorporates the world's oldest profession. In some developing regions, such as the Caribbean or the South Pacific, tourism is the primary sector in which significant economic growth takes place. In other regions, including areas of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and formerly communist eastern Europe, tourism is just beginning to take off. In all of these areas, tourism's impact has been decidedly mixed. Nowhere is this more visible than in the...

This book explores the complex roles of mobile, transient, and displaced populations in the worldwide spread of disease. While biomedical events cause disease, social forces such as poverty and marginalization magnify them by giving them opportunities to take hold. From Katrina to Darfur, and from influenza to AIDS, an expert panel of health and social scientists brings the social context of epidemics into clear focus.

Population Mobility and Infectious Disease moves beyond traditional behavioral and demographic theories of disease diffusion to focus on larger issues of social ecology and public health. With depth rarely seen in the international literature, it explores the complex and varied roles of mobile, transient, and displaced populations in the worldwide spread of airborne, waterborne, and sexually transmitted infections.

The book argues that while biomedical events cause disease, social forces such as poverty and marginalization magnify them by giving them new opportunities to take hold....