Research Summary:Jonathan Mayer is Professor of Geography, Adjunct Professor of Medicine (Allergy and Infectious Diseases), Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine, and Adjunct Professor of Health Services (School of Public Health). He is also co-founder of the University of Washington's "Emerging Infectious Disease Working Group."
Over the past three years, he has been working on the effects of climate change on infectious disease distribution; the clinical roles of spatial reasoning in infectious diseases; and the dual and interacting roles of politics and human-environment relations in the genesis and mitigation of disease. He has also continued his previous work on emerging and resurgent infectious diseases.
Mayer's work in the geography of health and disease has spanned his entire career of 24+ years. He has been Visiting Professor of Population and International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health (1997-98), as well as Visiting Professor at other universities in Europe, the Middle East, and North America. His work on the spatial epidemiology of infectious diseases is well known, as is his work on integrating social, ecological, and biological models in infectious disease causation. He served as the only social scientist on the Institute of Medicine/National Research Council/National Academy of Science’s “Committee on Climate, Ecosystems, Infectious Diseases, and Human Health,” which was charged with developing the definitive word on the role of climate variability’s effects on infectious disease distribution. He wrote the social science and spatial epidemiologic portions of the Committee’s report, published by the National Academy Press (Under the Weather, 2001). He has also worked in the past three years on the political ecology of infectious disease, using a framework that he first developed in 1996, which drew upon third world political ecology more generally.
Recent Publications:- Fries, B. C.; Mayer, J., (2009), Climate change and infectious disease, Interdisciplinary perspectives on infectious diseases, 2009.
- Bell, J.; Zimmerman, F.; Mayer, J.; Almgren, G.; Huebner, C., (2007), Associations Between Residential Segregation and Smoking During Pregnancy Among Urban African-American Women, Journal of Urban Health, 84: 3, 372-388.
- Almgren, G. R.; Bell, J. F.; Zimmerman, F. J.; Mayer, J. D.; Huebner, C. E., (2006), Birth outcomes among urban African-American women: A multilevel analysis of the role of racial residential segregation, Social science & medicine., 63: 12, 3030.
- Bell, J. F.; Zimmerman, F. J.; Almgren, G. R.; Mayer, J. D.; Huebner, C. E., (2006), Birth outcomes among urban African-American women: A multilevel analysis of the role of racial residential segregation, Social Science & Medicine, 63: 12, 3030.
- Bell, J. F.; Zimmerman, F. J.; Mayer, J. D.; Almgren, G. R.; Huebner, C. E., (2006), Racial Residential Segregation and Birthweight: The Role of Specific Dimension of Segregations, Population Association of America.
- Mayer, J. D., (2005), Changing Vector Ecologies : Political Geographic Perspectives, The Impact of Globalization on Infectious Disease Emergence and Control, National Academy Press, Washington: Institute of Medicine, Forum on Microbial Threats.
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Ph.D. 1977, University of Michigan. Medical geography, health care planning. 
