The calendar of epidemics: Seasonal cycles of infectious diseases

About the Authors: Micaela Elvira Martinez * E-mail: mem2352@cumc.columbia.edu Affiliation: Climate & Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9248-9450 Introduction Seasonal cyclicity is a ubiquitous feature of acute infectious diseases [1] and may be a ubiquitous feature of human infectious diseases in general, as illustrated in Tables 1–4. In order to explore documented seasonal cycles in human infections, the websites of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control were searched to compile a list of 60+ communicable diseases of public health interest. In general, if "everything is seasonal," then everything will covary (usually with some phase shifts). [...]seasonal covariance alone is not useful for establishing seasonal drivers. Let's consider a human disease with peak incidence in the summer, such as polio [6]. Because incidence peaks in summer, it would have a strong positive relationship with temperature, photoperiod (day length), and many other summer-related features of the environment and human populations.