Books about Epidemics and Pandemics

I've decided to channel some of my nervous energy about COVID-19 into reading books about pandemic directed at the lay reader. I do read news stories and scientific updates, but it's hard to see the forest from the trees right now. 

By looking at the work of epidemiologists narrating how they have addressed various outbreaks over the last 100 years, I can learn something about how people respond to contagions that cause epidemics and pandemics. 


Here's my list in reverse chronology.

WHO Global Aging Report

Photo by Wendy North.

I'm spending May developing a university course on the topic of Global Aging and Health Care. Textbooks are always a few years behind current data. However with COVID-19, the information about the health of older adults is rapidly becoming outdated.

Even with COVID-19, the world's population is aging. Do countries have support services in place to assist them? 

The health of older adults is interwoven with other dimensions of their location--their country's economics, politics, military conflicts, population pyramids, migration patterns, and available health care services, just to name a few.

Nevertheless, I am striving to learn the "lay of the land" about global aging by surveying reports by major stakeholders such as WHO, UN, UNESCO, OECD and others.

I'm starting by reading the World Health Organization's report Global Health and Aging (published in October 2011).

Here are the highlights with some responses based on the COVID-19 pandemic.