Infectious diseases are a major burden to global economies, and public and animal health. To date, quantifying the spread of infectious diseases to inform policy making has traditionally relied on epidemiological data collected during epidemics. However, interest has grown in recent phylodynamic techniques to infer pathogen transmission dynamics from genetic data. Here, we provide examples of where this new discipline has enhanced disease management in public health and illustrate how it could be further applied in animal health. In particular, we describe how phylodynamics can address fundamental epidemiological questions, such as inferring key transmission parameters in animal populations and quantifying spillover events at the wildlife–livestock interface, and generate important insights for the design of more effective control strategies.

传染病是全球经济以及公共和动物健康的主要负担。迄今为止，量化传染病的传播以告知政策制定传统上依赖于流行期间收集的流行病学数据。然而，最近人们对从遗传数据推断病原体传播动态的系统动力学技术越来越感兴趣。在这里，我们提供了这个新学科在公共卫生领域加强疾病管理的例子，并说明了它如何进一步应用于动物健康。特别是，我们描述了系统动力学如何解决基本的流行病学问题，例如推断动物种群的关键传播参数和量化野生动物-牲畜界面的溢出事件，并为设计更有效的控制策略提供重要的见解。