Investigating Wildlife Disease as a Social Problem

Abstract

Social dimensions define whether wildlife disease is considered a problem, society’s response to wildlife disease, and the available solution space for wildlife health problems. Wildlife disease can have interacting environmental, human health, economic and sociocultural impacts on society, but the way in which society constructs wildlife disease as a problem is shaped by a much broader sociocultural landscape. The sociological imagination, with lines of historical, cultural, structural, and critical inquiry, provides a framework for investigating the social dimensions of wildlife health. The investigation of wildlife disease as a social problem requires wildlife health professionals to work in transdisciplinary teams that include social scientists and to meaningfully engage community stakeholders in a process of cooperative inquiry. The development of effective, real-world solutions to a wildlife health problem demands comprehensive knowledge of the social dimensions of that problem, drawing on diverse social science disciplines, and the implementation of a translational approach to the research endeavor.