Pandemics: Risks, Impacts, and Mitigation

Presents the findings concerning the risks, impacts, and mitigation of pandemics as well as knowledge gaps of pandemics. Pandemics—defined as large-scale outbreaks of infectious disease that can greatly increase morbidity and mortality over a wide geographic area and cause significant economic, social, and political disruption—have increased in number over the past century because of increased global travel and integration, urbanization, changes in land use, and greater exploitation of the natural environment. These trends will likely continue and intensify. Significant policy attention has focused on the need to identify and limit emerging outbreaks that might lead to pandemics and to expand and sustain…