Impact of dual climatic and socioeconomic factors on global trends in infectious disease outbreaks

A recurrent pattern has been observed in global infectious disease outbreaks in recent decades. Nevertheless, quantifying the impact of global change on infectious disease outbreaks remains a challenging endeavor. This study examines the spatiotemporal characteristics of global infectious disease outbreaks and the extent to which global climatic and socioeconomic factors influence them, as well as the relationships between these factors and outbreaks. The results illustrate that the global trend in infectious disease outbreaks is characterized by an upward trend followed by a levelling off, with spatial progression first from the mid-latitudes to the mid-latitudes and high latitudes of North America and South Asia and then clustering in the Central Asian and North American regions. Additionally, socioeconomic factors, such as GDP, population, and human development, contribute more to infectious disease outbreaks than do climatic factors, such as temperature and precipitation. Furthermore, the dual-factor influence of socioeconomic factors and climate change on the trend of infectious disease outbreaks has a complex nonlinear relationship, with an overall increasing trend in infectious disease outbreaks when the HDI increases from 0.19 to 0.55 and from 0.74 to 0.93, when the temperature increases from 1.9 °C to 23 °C and when precipitation increases from 6.75 mm to 800 mm and from 1,600 mm to 2,900 mm per year. The above findings can help countries formulate appropriate prevention and control policies that are adapted to their development contexts and optimize the allocation of public health resources.