Risk perception – or an individual's susceptibility to perceive a threat (e.g. disease, predator, competitor) – has shaped the physiology, cognition, behavior and ecology of animals for millions of years. While a lot of research has focused on lethal threats (i.e. predation), only recently have we increased our understanding of how animals, and more particularly our closest phylogenetic relatives, detect disease risk and prevent infection. My work and that of my collaborators has been able to demonstrate that (1) non-human primates avoid sensory cues associated with biological contaminants and the risk of infection; (2) individuals who avoid contaminated food and places and diseased conspecifics show lower levels of infection or parasite diversity, compared to less cautious individuals; (3) certain behaviors exposing individuals to fecal-oral disease risk are learnt; and (4) risk perception affects certain cognitive processes in primates, in different ways depending on the type of risk (infection vs. predation). Although disease risk avoidance and disgust have been used to promote behavioral changes in human health, and predation risk avoidance and fear have been used in wildlife management contexts, disgust and fear can have a much wider range of applications and can be co-opted. Building on my previous work and the resulting theoretical framework, some of my ongoing and future projects aim to (re)create a landscape of risk in order to exploit the protective phenotypes of animals and humans and reduce the frequency of negative interactions between them. I introduce some of the contexts in which disgust-related avoidance behaviors could be applied, such as crop-raiding and animal tourism. Finally, I highlight some of the perspectives and challenges of testing disgust and risk perception in wild animals.