Challenges in understanding and communicating the risk of zoonotic disease spillover from wild animal meat | PNAS Nexus | Oxford Academic

Natalie Yoh, Gebbiena M Bron, Amy Ickowitz, Charlotte Spira, Lucy G Thorne, Pierre Nouvellet, Daniel J Ingram, Challenges in understanding and communicating the risk of zoonotic disease spillover from wild animal meat, PNAS Nexus, Volume 4, Issue 12, December 2025, pgaf364, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf364 Discussions around managing hunting and the consumption of wild animal meat increasingly emphasizes public health concerns and the risk of zoonotic spillover. In this article, we explore factors that may lead to under- or overestimating health risks from wild meat and break down key terminology for a multidisciplinary audience. We outline key principles of disease ecology and epidemiology that are often overlooked when quantifying spillover risk, and reflect on the importance of contextualizing health risks relative to food-health systems more broadly. We discuss how misrepresenting risks, intentionally or unintentionally, to justify conservation practices can have unintend

Natalie Yoh, Gebbiena M Bron, Amy Ickowitz, Charlotte Spira, Lucy G Thorne, Pierre Nouvellet, Daniel J Ingram, Challenges in understanding and communicating the risk of zoonotic disease spillover from wild animal meat, PNAS Nexus, Volume 4, Issue 12, December 2025, pgaf364, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf364 Discussions around managing hunting and the consumption of wild animal meat increasingly emphasizes public health concerns and the risk of zoonotic spillover. In this article, we explore factors that may lead to under- or overestimating health risks from wild meat and break down key