01395nas a2200157   4500000000100000008004100001653007100042100001300113700001300126245006200139856007700201300001400278490000700292520092400299022001401223       2014                            d10astigma; infectious disease; evolution; ostracism; group membership1 aSmith RA1 aHughes D00aInfectious Disease Stigmas: Maladaptive in Modern Society  uhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4251586/pdf/nihms-608685.pdf  a132 - 1380 v653 aAt multiple times in human history people have asked if there are good stigmas. Is there some useful function stigmas serve in the context of our evolutionary history; is stigma adaptive? This article discusses stigmas as a group-selection strategy and the human context in which stigmas likely appeared. The next section explores how human patterns have changed in modern society and the consequences for infectious disease (ID) stigmas in the modern age. The concluding section suggests that while social-living species may be particularly apt to create and communicate ID stigmas and enact ID-related stigmatization, such stigma-related processes no longer function to protect human communities. Stigmas do not increase the ability of modern societies to survive infectious diseases but, in fact, may be important drivers of problematic disease dynamics and act as catalysts for failures in protecting public health.  a1051-0974