The COVID-19 pandemic won't be our last&md ash\;because what makes us vulnerable to pandemics also makes us human. Th at is the uncomfortable but all-too-timely message of \;The Human Disease: How We Create Pandemics\, From Our Bodies to Our Beliefs\, w hich travels through history and around the globe to examine how and why p andemics are an inescapable threat of our own making. Drawing on dozens of disciplines&mdash\;from medicine\, epidemiology\, and microbiology to ant hropology\, sociology\, ecology\, and neuroscience&mdash\;as well as a uni que expertise in public education about emerging infectious diseases\, bio logical anthropologist Sabrina Sholts identifies the human traits and tend encies that double as pandemic liabilities\, from the anatomy that defines us to the misperceptions that divide us.
\nWeaving together a wealt h of personal experiences\, scientific findings\, and historical stories\, Sholts brings dramatic and much-needed clarity to one of the most profoun d challenges we face as a species. Though the COVID-19 pandemic looms larg e in Sholts's account\, it is\, in fact\, just one of the many infectious disease events explored in \;The Human Disease. With its expa nsive\, evolutionary perspective\, the book explains how humanity will con tinue to face new pandemics because \;humans cause them\, by the ways that we are and the things that we do. By recognizing our risks\, Sholts s uggests\, we can take actions to reduce them. When the next pandemic happe ns\, and how bad it becomes\, are largely within our highly capable human hands&mdash\;and will be determined by what we do with our extraordinary h uman brains. \;
\nSabrina Sholts is a biological anthropologist and Curator of Biological Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museu m of Natural History (NMNH). Her research explores intersections of human\ , animal\, and environmental health in the past and present. She received her PhD in Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral researc her at UC Berkeley in Integrative Biology and at Stockholm University in B iophysics and Biochemistry. Sholts has published widely in academic journa ls including \;American Journal of Biological Anthropology\,& nbsp\;Environmental Health Perspectives\, \;JAMA\, < em>PNAS\, \;Scientific Reports\, \;Proceedings o f the Royal Society B\, and \;Nature Ecology &\; Evolution \, and written for popular audiences in \;Scientific American \;and \;Smithsonian Magazine. She was named as a Wo rld Economic Forum Young Scientist in 2019. In addition\, she was Lead Cur ator of the exhibition \;Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World \;at the NMNH \;(2018-2022) and a scientific advisor for the related e xhibition \;É\;pidé\;mies: \;Prendre soin du vivant&nb sp\;at the musé\;e des Confluences in Lyon\, France \;(2024-2025 ).
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