Abstract
The Amazon basin, a biodiversity hotspot, is a complex mosaic of disease landscapes influenced by intricate socio-economic and environmental dynamics. Here, we employ an innovative ecosyndemics framework to dissect the interplay between vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and leishmaniasis, and their co-occurrence in relation to agrarian economies and environmental changes from 2015 to 2019. Leveraging a comprehensive dataset covering the Brazilian Amazon, we reveal how economic activities dictating land use and social structures within diverse Amazonian communities drive disease patterns by altering vector habitats and human exposure. Our findings highlight major disease clusters that correspond with specific agrarian, environmental, and socio-economic contexts. These results can help prioritise regions for further research, enhanced disease surveillance, and broader multisectoral health initiatives. This integration addresses the intertwined challenges of disease management, conservation, and sustainable development in biodiverse regions undergoing rapid ecological change.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Prof Francisco de Assis Costa for discussions on technoproductive trajectories.
Funding
This study was funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, CNPq, grant numbers 442357/2019-2 and 403638/2025-4. M.B. was a CNPq scholarship holder, Brazil, under grant numbers 163999/2021-0 and 175583/2023-4. M.B. was also supported by the European Commission under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, project FORCHANGE, grant number EP/Z003253/1.
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Barbosa, M., Lana, R.M., Dal’Asta, A.P. et al. Vector-borne disease co-occurrence is shaped by agrarian economy and socioenvironmental contexts in the Brazilian Amazon.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03619-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03619-4
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