Ecosyndemics: The potential synergistic health impacts of highways and dams in the Amazon

Ecosyndemics: The potential synergistic health impacts of highways and dams in the Amazon

Ecosyndemics refer to disease interactions that result from environmental changes commonly caused by humans. In this paper, we push scholarship on ecosyndemics into new territory by using the ecosyndemic framework to compare two case studies—the Southern Interoceanic highway in Peru and the Belo Mon...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) Vol. 295; p. 113037
Main Authors: Tallman, Paula Skye, Riley-Powell, Amy R., Schwarz, Lara, Salmón-Mulanovich, Gabriela, Southgate, Todd, Pace, Cynthia, Valdés-Velásquez, Armando, Hartinger, Stella M., Paz-Soldán, Valerie A., Lee, Gwenyth O.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-02-2022
Pergamon Press Inc
Subjects:
Amazon
Animal Welfare
Animals
Brazil
Case studies
Change agents
Conceptual models
Dams
Development programs
Ecosyndemics
Emotional abuse
Environment
Forests
Health
Healthy food
Highways
Illnesses
Impact analysis
Infections
Mental health
Morbidity
Occupational stress
Peru
Population growth
Psychological distress
Resilience
Roads & highways
Sex industry
Social cohesion
Stress
Syndemics
Vector-borne diseases
Vectors (Biology)
Brazil
Peru
Highways
Dams
Amazon
Health
Syndemics
Ecosyndemics
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Summary:Ecosyndemics refer to disease interactions that result from environmental changes commonly caused by humans. In this paper, we push scholarship on ecosyndemics into new territory by using the ecosyndemic framework to compare two case studies—the Southern Interoceanic highway in Peru and the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Brazil—to assess the likelihood of socio-environmental factors interacting and leading to ill health in a syndemic fashion. Assessing these two case studies using an ecosyndemic perspective, we find that the construction of dams and highways in tropical forests create the conditions for increases in vector-borne illnesses, surges in sex work and sexually-transmitted infections, and increased psychological stress resulting from violence, delinquency, and the erosion of social cohesion. We suggest that these processes could interact synergistically to increase an individual's immune burden and a population's overall morbidity. However, we find differences in the impacts of the Interoceanic highway and the Belo Monte dam on food, water, and cultural systems, and observed that community and corporate-level actions may bolster health in the face of rapid socio-ecological change. Looking at the case studies together, a complex picture of vulnerability and resilience, risk and opportunity, complicates straight-forward predictions of ecosyndemic interactions resulting from these development projects but highlights the role that the ecosyndemic concept can play in informing health impact assessments and future research. We conclude by proposing a conceptual model of the potential interactions between psychological stress, vector-borne illnesses, and sexaully-transmitted infections and suggest that future investigations of synergistic interactions among these factors draw from the biological, social, and ecological sciences. •Ecosyndemics are disease interactions ignited by eco-social changes.•We compared two Amazonian mega-development projects using an ecosyndemic framing.•Projects were Belo Monte dam in Brazil and the Interoceanic highway in Peru.•Potential synergism among stress, vector-borne and sexually-transmitted infections.•Researchers should use interdisciplinary methods to further examine dynamics.
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113037