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As a researcher, I’m interested in the political, ecological, and cultural debates around mosquito-borne diseases and the solutions proposed to mitigate them.

When we received the task, my first impulse was to investigate about the contemporary effects of anthropogenic climate change in mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans. But I was afraid to make the same mistake that I did in my PhD research. I wrote my PhD proposal while based in the US, more specifically in New England, during the Zika epidemic, and proposed to understand how scientists were studying ecological climate change and mosquitoes in Brazil. However, once I arrived in the country the political climate was a much more pressing issue, with the dismantling of health and scientific institutions.

Thus, after our meeting yesterday, and Jason Ludwig’s reminder that the theme of our Field Campus is the plantation, I decided to focus on how it related to mosquitoes in New Orleans.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the yellow fever virus it can transmit are imbricated in the violent histories of settler-colonialism and slavery that define the plantation economy. The mosquito and the virus arrived in the Americas in the same ships that brought enslaved peoples from Africa. The city of New Orleans had its first yellow fever epidemic in 1796, with frequent epidemics happening between 1817 and 1905. What caused New Orleans to be the “City of the Dead,” as Kristin Gupta has indicated, was yellow fever. However, as historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby points out, the slave trade cannot explain alone the spread and persistance of the disease in the region: "Alterations to the landscape, combined with demographic changes resulting from the rise of sugar production, slavery, and urban growth all contributed to the region’s development as a yellow fever zone." For example, sugar cultivation created ideal conditions for mosquito proliferation because of the extensive landscape alteration and ecological instabilities, including heavy deforestation and the construction of drainage ditches and canals.

Historian Kathryn Olivarius examines how for whites "acclimatization" to the disease played a role in hierarchies with “acclimated” (immune) people at the top and a great mass of “unacclimated” (non-immune) people and how for black enslaved people "who were embodied capital, immunity enhanced the value and safety of that capital for their white owners, strengthening the set of racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery."

As I continue to think through these topics, I wonder how both the historical materialities of the plantation and the contemporary anthropogenic changes might be influencing mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans nowadays? And more, how the regions’ histories of race and class might still be shaping the effects of these diseases and how debates about them are framed?

The goal of this organization is to secure a more peaceful and safe world free from the threat of nuclear war and destruction. 

The author explores the definitions of humanitarianism and analyzes historical documents and data obtained from humanitarian aid organizations. The author compares this information with anecdotal evidence in the form of public opinion to map the development of this issue.

The NYS Ebola Preparedness Plan was criticized by the public and other agencies, primarily for its strict quarantine protocols, which have been called "overzealous" by some. In addition, the policy was criticized for its inconsistency with Federal and international guidelines which may have created confusion for the public.

Dr. Emily Goldmann, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Research Professor of Global Public Health at New York University's College of Global Public Health. She received her Master's and Doctorate's degrees in epidemiology from the University of Michigan. She has worked as an epidemiologist at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Adult Mental Health, where she conducted surveillance of psychological distress, serious mental illness, and psychiatric hospitalization among New Yorkers and assisted in designing and implementing a study of patients for psychiatric illness following Hurricane Sandy.

Dr. Sandro Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH, is a physician and epidemiologist. He is also the Robert A. Knox Professor and Dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. He has also previously held academic and leadership positions at the University of Michigan and at the New York Academy of Medicine. He has been involved in numerous research efforts and publications. His research focuses on the social production of health in urban populations, with a focus on brain disorders, mood-anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. He also maintains a strong interest in the consequences of mass trauma and conflict worldwide, including as a result of the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This research article was authored by Dr. Vincanne Adams, Dr. Diana English, and Taslim Van Hattum who are professors and researchers at the University of California at San Francisco's Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine. All three authors have been extensively involved in research in their respective fields and have authored numerous publications.