Cadavid Restrepo, Angela MYang, Yu RMcManus, Donald PGray, Darren JGiraudoux, PatrickBarnes, Tamsin SWilliams, Gail MSoares Magalhaes, RicardoHamm, Nicholas A SClements, Archie C A2016-02-212016-02-212049-9957http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40249-016-0109-xhttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/98086Echinococcoses are parasitic diseases of major public health importance globally. Human infection results in chronic disease with poor prognosis and serious medical, social and economic consequences for vulnerable populations. According to recent estimates, the geographical distribution of Echinococcus spp. infections is expanding and becoming an emerging and re-emerging problem in several regions of the world. Echinococcosis endemicity is geographically heterogeneous and over time it may be affected by global environmental change. Therefore, landscape epidemiology offers a unique opportunity to quantify and predict the ecological risk of infection at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Here, we review the most relevant environmental sources of spatial variation in human echinococcosis risk, and describe the potential applications of landscape epidemiological studies to characterise the current patterns of parasite transmission across natural and human-altered landscapes. We advocate future work promoting the use of this approach as a support tool for decision-making that facilitates the design, implementation and monitoring of spatially targeted interventions to reduce the burden of human echinococcoses in disease-endemic areas.We acknowledge financial support by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia (APP1009539). AMCR is a PhD Candidate supported by a Postgraduate Award from The Australian National University; ACAC is a NHMRC Career Development Fellow; DPM is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow; DJG is an Australian Research Council Fellow (DECRA); TSB is a Senior Research Fellow; RJSM is funded by a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the University of Queensland (41795457).13 pages© 2016 Cadavid Restrepo et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Landscape epidemiologyHelminth infectionHuman echinococcosisEchinococcus sppEnvironmental changeGeographic information systemsRemote sensingGeostatisticsenCadavid Restrepo et al.2016-02-192016-02-20