title: Infectious Disease Stigmas: Maladaptive in Modern Society.
abstract: At multiple times in human history people have asked if there aregoodstigmas. Is there some useful function stigmas serve in the context of our evolutionary history; is stigma adaptive? This essay discusses stigmas as a group-selection strategy and the human context in which stigmas likely appeared. The next section explores how human patterns have changed in modern society and the consequences for infectious disease (ID) stigmas in the modern age. The concluding section suggests that while social-living species may be particularly apt to create and communicate ID stigmas and enact ID-related stigmatization, such stigma-related processes no longer function to protect human communities. Stigmas do not increase the ability of modern societies to survive infectious diseases, but in fact may be important drivers of problematic disease dynamics and act as catalysts for failures in protecting public health.
authors.affiliation: Rachel Smith is an Associate Professor in the Associate Professor in Communication Arts & Sciences, and David Hughes is an Assistant Professor in the Entomology and Biology at The Pennsylvania State University. Smith and Hughes are both investigators in the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and the Methodology Center at The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Rachel A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Rachel Smith is an Associate Professor in the Associate Professor in Communication Arts & Sciences, and David Hughes is an Assistant Professor in the Entomology and Biology at The Pennsylvania State University. Smith and Hughes are both investigators in the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and the Methodology Center at The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hughes
keywords: evolution; group membership; infectious disease; ostracism; stigma