Humans and infectious disease agents share a long, intimate coevolutionary history, and this biocultural dynamic includes stigma. By stigma, we mean the process by which some people become morally discredited, socially devalued, and disempowered on the basis of disease diagnosis or other trait. The most powerful stigmas in the past and now are around diseases considered contagious, potentially deadly, and without a known cure—which describes COVID‐19 currently. Evolutionary interpretations of these responses suggest perhaps this deep fear reaction was once adaptive, with stigma acting as an additional, useful “behavioral immune system” in human societies prior to the emergence of public health systems. That is, a learned disgust that would become directed at people and not just objects could be advantageous if it reasonably indexed who might be infectious and contagious and made us avoid them (Curtis, Aunger, & Rabie, 2004; Kurzban & Leary, 2001).

But in the contexts of complex, unequal contemporary life, public stigma toward infectious diseases only accelerates their spread (Brewis & Wutich, 2019; Link & Phelan, 2006; Major, Dovidio, Link, & Calabrese, 2018). When disease is stigmatized, people do what they can to avoid the social label that comes from being identified with it. This can include avoiding testing, hiding their illness from others, failing to maintain necessary treatments, or simply denying it. Stigma thus also undermines public health capacities to track and treat infections within communities. In addition, there can be multiple intersecting forms of stigma, creating what Turan et al. (2019) refer to as “intersectional stigma.” Intersectional stigma refers to the convergence of multiple stigmatized identities and behaviors within an individual or group. In our world today, many people experience multiple levels of intersectional stigma based on marginalized and often racialized identities that intersect with other forms of stigma.

In this commentary, we reflect on some potential dimensions of stigma relevant to human biologists, considering stigma as a wide, infiltrative, and often subtle biocultural process. On the basis of histories of other disease stigmas, we make some predictions the trajectory of stigma in relation to COVID‐19. And in doing so, we highlight what we consider some especially timely and important research directions for human biologists in the year(s) ahead.

人类和传染病病原体有着悠久的亲密进化史，而这种生物文化动力包括污名。污名是指根据疾病诊断或其他特征，一些人的道德上受到歧视，社会贬值和丧失权力的过程。过去和现在，最有力的污名是围绕被认为具有传染性，潜在致命性和无法治愈的疾病，目前描述了COVID-19。这些反应的进化解释表明，这种深层恐惧反应可能曾经是适应性的，在公共卫生系统出现之前，柱头在人类社会中充当了额外的，有用的“行为免疫系统”。那是，2004 ; Kurzban＆Leary，2001）。

但在当代生活复杂，不平等的情况下，公众对传染病的污名只会加速其传播（Brewis＆Wutich，2019 ; Link＆Phelan，2006 ; Major，Dovidio，Link，＆Calabrese，2018）。当疾病受到污名化时，人们将尽其所能避免与疾病相关的社会标签。这可以包括避免进行测试，将其疾病隐藏在别人面前，无法维持必要的治疗方法或只是拒绝进行治疗。因此，污名化也破坏了追踪和治疗社区内感染的公共卫生能力。此外，柱头可以有多种相交的形式，从而形成了Turan等人的观点。（2019）称为“交叉污名”。交叉污名指的是个人或群体中多种污名化的身份和行为的融合。在当今的世界中，许多人基于与其他污名形式相交的边缘化和种族化身份而经历多个级别的交叉污名。

在这篇评论中，我们认为与人类生物学家相关的污名的一些潜在方面，认为污名是广泛的，渗透性的并且通常是微妙的生物文化过程。根据其他疾病柱头的历史，我们对柱头相对于COVID-19的轨迹进行了一些预测。在此过程中，我们重点介绍了我们认为对未来几年人类生物学家特别重要的一些及时和重要的研究方向。