Epidemiology of rheumatic diseases in tropical populations.

Tropical rheumatic diseases (TRDs) can be due to infectious as well as non-infectious causes. General and disease-specific risk factors have been identified as reasons for the prevalence of these diseases in the tropics. Predisposing factors such as higher temperatures and humidity are common in tropical countries. Other risk factors include high population density, poor nutrition, inadequate access to education and poor healthcare infrastructure. For most TRDs, the challenges are managing environmental factors, vectors, and interactions between them and the hosts. Strategies to control TRDs include tackling and accounting for deforestation and urbanization, increased travel and migration, climate change, and changes in the genetics and breeding patterns of infectious agents and vectors. The management of TRDs is taken up at individual or community, environmental, and political or organizational levels. It needs attention, as many of these TRDs are not now restricted to only the tropics.