Pigott, David MBhatt, SamirGolding, NickDuda, Kirsten ABattle, Katherine EBrady, Oliver JMessina, Jane PBalard, YvesBastien, PatrickPratlong, FrancineBrownstein, JohnFreifeld, Clark CMekaru, Sumiko RGething, Peter WGeorge, Dylan BMyers, Monica FReithinger, RichardHay, Simon I2014-08-132014Pigott, D. M., S. Bhatt, N. Golding, K. A. Duda, K. E. Battle, O. J. Brady, J. P. Messina, et al. 2014. “Global distribution maps of the leishmaniases.” eLife 3 (1): e02851. doi:10.7554/eLife.02851. http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02851.2050-084Xhttp://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12717539The leishmaniases are vector-borne diseases that have a broad global distribution throughout much of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Despite representing a significant public health burden, our understanding of the global distribution of the leishmaniases remains vague, reliant upon expert opinion and limited to poor spatial resolution. A global assessment of the consensus of evidence for leishmaniasis was performed at a sub-national level by aggregating information from a variety of sources. A database of records of cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis occurrence was compiled from published literature, online reports, strain archives, and GenBank accessions. These, with a suite of biologically relevant environmental covariates, were used in a boosted regression tree modelling framework to generate global environmental risk maps for the leishmaniases. These high-resolution evidence-based maps can help direct future surveillance activities, identify areas to target for disease control and inform future burden estimation efforts. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02851.001en-USleishmaniacutaneous leishmaniasisvisceral leishmaniasisniche based modellingboosted regression treesspecies distribution modellinghumanotherJournal Article2014-08-1310.7554/eLife.02851