Human bacterial pathogens can be part of the soil microbiota, but their prevalence and global distribution is unknown. Using metagenomic approaches, Xiong and colleagues identified 80 bacterial taxa of human pathogens in 1,602 soil samples collected across all continents. Among these, 25 taxa, including highly pathogenic ones, were present in high relative abundance in more than 80% of all soil metagenomes. The relative abundance of these dominant pathogens correlated positively with the presence of pathogenic features such as virulence factors in the metagenomic samples. Moreover, these distributions correlated with global mortality patterns of the associated infectious diseases, which suggests that soil-associated human pathogens represent a potential global risk. These dominant pathogens were especially prevalent in tropical and temperate ecosystems, their distribution correlating positively with rainfall and temperature but negatively with soil microbiota diversity. Predictions taking into account trends of global precipitation and temperature changes revealed a global increase in the proportion of human pathogens in the soil worldwide. These results suggest that knowledge about the prevalence of human bacterial pathogens in soils, influenced by climatic conditions and soil biodiversity, is important to improve risk assessment and management strategies against infectious diseases.