Environmental Protection Policy and the Emergence of New Diseases: A Global Empirical Analysis of the Pre- and Post-industrial Era

Abstract

Background: Proper biodiversity conservation and strategies for sustainability in environmental and public health are essential measures for addressing the problems of water-related and zoonotic-caused pandemics. It is generally assumed that a resurgence in an epidemic disease is directly linked to negligence in environmental protection policies, but there are sparse scientific publications supporting the claim. Methods: To address this issue, we collected data on the global pre- and post- industrialization scenarios and subjected it to multivariate analyses to investigate the relationship between the lack of proper environmental protection and the emergence of new diseases. Result: Our investigations found a statistically significant association between the loss of wildlife habitat and the emergence of novel diseases. The study also revealed that wildlife-related zoonotic disorders caused more than 220 million deaths amongst global pandemics. More than 30 million deaths were attributed to waterborne diseases due to improper waste management and wastewater treatment. Thus, it is recommended that other environmental parameters (e.g., pollution phase) need to be investigated to fully understand the complex relationship between environmental protection and emergence of new zoonotic diseases.