Department of Political Science, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Department of Peace Studies, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Aug;8(8):1506-1513. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-01929-1. Epub 2024 Jul 15.
While the number of infectious zoonotic disease outbreaks has been rising, their impact on civil war and social conflict is poorly understood. This study addresses this fundamental limitation using a geolocated monthly dataset on 22 zoonotic diseases in Africa. Zoonotic disease is a key driver of new epidemics, making such pathogens a useful test case. Results suggest that over the January 1997 to December 2019 period, zoonotic disease was negatively associated with state initiation of civil conflict and positively associated with social conflict involving identity militias. Additional analyses find that the effect for identity militias is consistent with a causal interpretation. Rebel violence is not significantly associated with outbreaks. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and additional sensitivity analyses.
尽管传染病动物源性疾病的暴发数量一直在上升，但人们对其对内战和社会冲突的影响知之甚少。本研究利用非洲 22 种动物源性疾病的地理位置每月数据集，解决了这一基本限制。动物源性疾病是新流行病的主要驱动因素，因此此类病原体是一个有用的检验案例。结果表明，在 1997 年 1 月至 2019 年 12 月期间，动物源性疾病与国家发起内战呈负相关，与涉及身份民兵的社会冲突呈正相关。进一步的分析发现，身份民兵的影响符合因果关系的解释。叛乱暴力与疫情爆发没有显著关联。结果对内生性问题和其他敏感性分析具有稳健性。
