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Forest-based communities manage many risks to health and socio-economic welfare including the increasing threat of emerging zoonoses that are expected to disproportionately affect poor and marginalised groups, and further impair their precarious livelihoods, particularly in Low-and-Middle Income (LMIC) settings. Yet, there is a relative dearth of empirical research on the vulnerability and adaptation pathways of poor and marginalised groups facing emerging zoonoses. Drawing on a survey of 229 households and a series of key-informant interviews in the Western Ghats, we examine the factors affecting vulnerability of smallholder and tribal households to Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), an often-fatal tick-borne viral haemorrhagic fever endemic in south India. Specifically, we investigate how different socio-demographic and institutional factors interact to shape KFD vulnerability and the strategies employed by households to adapt to disease consequences. Although surveyed households generally perceived KFD as an important health issue in the study region, there was variability in concern about contracting the disease. Overall results showed that poor access to land (AOR = 0.373, 95% CI: 0.152–0.916), being at or below the poverty line (AOR = 0.253, 95% CI: 0.094–0.685) and being headed by an older person (AOR = 1.038, 95% CI: 1.006–1.071) were all significant determinants of perceived KFD vulnerability. Furthermore, KFD vulnerability is also modulated by important extra-household factors including proximity to private hospitals (AOR = 3.281, 95% CI: 1.220–8.820), main roads (AOR = 2.144, 95% CI: 1.215–3.783) and study location (AOR = 0.226, 95% CI: 0.690–0.743). Our findings highlight how homogenous characterisation of smallholder and tribal communities and the ‘techno-oriented’ approach of existing interventions may further marginalise the most vulnerable and exacerbate existing inequalities. These findings are important for designing context-specific and appropriate he

There is increased global and national attention on the need for effective strategies to control zoonotic diseases. Quick, effective action is, however, hampered by poor evidence-bases and limited coordination between stakeholders from relevant sectors such as public and animal health, wildlife and forestry sectors at different scales, who may not usually work together. The OneHealth approach recognises the value of cross-sectoral evaluation of human, animal and environmental health questions in an integrated, holistic and transdisciplinary manner to reduce disease impacts and/or mitigate risks. Co-production of knowledge is also widely advocated to improve the quality and acceptability of decision-making across sectors and may be particularly important when it comes to zoonoses. This paper brings together OneHealth and knowledge co-production and reflects on lessons learned for future OneHealth co-production processes by describing a process implemented to understand spill-over and identify disease control and mitigation strategies for a zoonotic disease in Southern India (Kyasanur Forest Disease). The co-production process aimed to develop a joint decision-support tool with stakeholders, and we complemented our approach with a simple retrospective theory of change on researcher expectations of the system-level outcomes of the co-production process. Our results highlight that while co-production in OneHealth is a difficult and resource intensive process, requiring regular iterative adjustments and flexibility, the beneficial outcomes justify its adoption. A key future aim should be to improve and evaluate the degree of inter-sectoral collaboration required to achieve the aims of OneHealth. We conclude by providing guidelines based on our experience to help funders and decision-makers support future co-production processes.

Smallholder farmer and tribal communities are often characterised as marginalised and highly vulnerable to emerging zoonotic diseases due to their relatively poor access to healthcare, worse-off health outcomes, proximity to sources of disease risks, and their social and livelihood organisation. Yet, access to relevant and timely disease information that could strengthen their adaptive capacity remain challenging and poorly characterised in the empirical literature. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the role of disease information in shaping the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmer and tribal groups to Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), a tick-borne viral haemorrhagic fever. We carried out household surveys (n = 229) and in-depth interviews (n = 25) in two affected districts–Shimoga and Wayanad–in the Western Ghats region. Our findings suggest that, despite the generally limited awareness about KFD, access to disease information improved households’ propensity to implement adaptation strategies relative to households that had no access to it. Of the variety of adaptation strategies implemented, vaccination, avoiding forest visits, wearing of protective clothing and footwear, application of dimethyl phthalate (DMP) oil and income diversification were identified by respondents as important adaptive measures during the outbreak seasons. Even so, we identified significant differences between individuals in exposure to disease information and its contribution to substantive adaptive action. Households reported several barriers to implement adaptation strategies including, lack of disease information, low efficacy of existing vaccine, distrust, religio-cultural sentiments, and livelihood concerns. We also found that informal information sharing presented a promising avenue from a health extension perspective albeit with trade-offs with potential distortion of the messages through misinformation and/or reporting bias. Altogether, our findings stress the importance

Zoonotic diseases affect resource-poor tropical communities disproportionately, and are linked to human use and modification of ecosystems. Disentangling the socio-ecological mechanisms by which ecosystem change precipitates impacts of pathogens is critical for predicting disease risk and designing effective intervention strategies. Despite the global “One Health” initiative, predictive models for tropical zoonotic diseases often focus on narrow ranges of risk factors and are rarely scaled to intervention programs and ecosystem use. This study uses a participatory, co-production approach to address this disconnect between science, policy and implementation, by developing more informative disease models for a fatal tick-borne viral haemorrhagic disease, Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), that is spreading across degraded forest ecosystems in India. We integrated knowledge across disciplines to identify key risk factors and needs with actors and beneficiaries across the relevant policy sectors, to understand disease patterns and develop decision support tools. Human case locations (2014–2018) and spatial machine learning quantified the relative role of risk factors, including forest cover and loss, host densities and public health access, in driving landscape-scale disease patterns in a long-affected district (Shivamogga, Karnataka State). Models combining forest metrics, livestock densities and elevation accurately predicted spatial patterns in human KFD cases (2014–2018). Consistent with suggestions that KFD is an “ecotonal” disease, landscapes at higher risk for human KFD contained diverse forest-plantation mosaics with high coverage of moist evergreen forest and plantation, high indigenous cattle density, and low coverage of dry deciduous forest. Models predicted new hotspots of outbreaks in 2019, indicating their value for spatial targeting of intervention. Co-production was vital for: gathering outbreak data that reflected locations of exposure in the landscape; bet

Human engagements with nature are expressed through an extensive range of cultural forms that are dynamic, complex and often defy singular logics and ethical approaches. Whether traditional or modern, biocentric or utilitarian, societies continue these engagements along several axes that include but are not limited to protection, veneration, killing and subjugation. The Indian scenario too is an equally diverse one. Its wide array of human communities celebrate an equally vast variety of close engagements with species that range from reverence to destruction. However, being the second most populous nation with one of the fastest growing economies on the planet, India faces significant environmental concerns and is at an important juncture in thinking about sustainability.

Guest Editorial - In most instances relating to conservation, traditional, local and indigenous forms of knowledge and practice are ignored. In others, they play second fiddle to 'scientific' knowledge and practice, and are at best treated with romanticism or charitable condescension. In this issue of Current Conservation, we explore these themes further.