In this PSI & Oxford Martin School talk, Professor Drake will trace the historical record of major 20th and 21st Century pandemics, highlighting how global forces such as economic integration, urbanisation and climate disruption shape the emergence and spread of novel pathogens.

Emerging infectious diseases are not random shocks to human societies, but recurrent features of a world increasingly shaped by globalisation and global change. Over the past century, pandemics such as influenza, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19 have revealed how economic integration, rapid urbanization, climate disruption, and ecological transformation create structural conditions for novel pathogens to appear and spread.

This lecture traces the historical record of major twentieth and twenty first century pandemics to document not just the immediate health impacts of emerging diseases, but also their social and economic consequences. Building on this evidence, I introduce the “globalization grid,” a framework that maps the flows of goods and services, capital, people, and ideas across political, economic, and cultural domains. This perspective highlights the multiple, interacting pathways through which globalisation influences disease emergence, from deforestation and agricultural intensification to global supply chains, labour mobility, and international governance.

By situating pandemics within these broader systemic processes, we can better understand why certain pathogens achieve global reach and why their impacts are so unevenly distributed. The challenge for the future is to design institutions and interventions that anticipate these dynamics, strengthening resilience before the next pandemic emerges.

Professor John Drake is Regents Professor of Ecology at the Odum School of Ecology and Director of the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases (CEID) at the University of Georgia. He is also a Visiting Fellow at PSI and the Oxford Martin School. 

Professor Drake’s research combines mathematical modelling and data analysis to study the dynamics of zoonotic diseases, the macroecology of emerging infections, and the interdisciplinary integration of social, natural, and mathematical sciences. He has applied spatial interaction and compartmental models to a wide range of systems, including the spread of White-nose syndrome in North American bats, the 2013–2015 West African Ebola epidemic, the evolutionary dynamics of influenza, and the early transmission patterns of COVID-19. 

His current research focuses on understanding the global forces driving disease emergence and advancing infectious disease intelligence, leveraging real-time data to inform decision-making during outbreaks of emerging pathogens.

‘Globalisation, global change and emerging infectious diseases’ with Professor John Drake