ABSTRACT
This chapter provides several topics of health and disease through which to explore how contemporary health and disease issues may act as forces for change within communities and places. Health and disease display uneven spatial patterns at all scales, between geo-political areas of the world, between countries, between sub-national units and within sub-national units. The opposite relationship of health and disease on place has been researched in relation to population responses, such as adaptations in the built environment or labour protection laws, to natural hazards and risks to health arising from different kinds of places. By the end of 2005, 40.3 million people were estimated to be living with human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) worldwide, of which 4.9 million were new infections. Much of the research on HIV/AIDS has focused on aetiology, transmission, prevention, treatment and possible cures.
