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We consider the spatio-temporal patterns of disease spread involving structured populations. We start with a general model framework in population biology and spatial ecology where the individual's spatial movement behaviors depend on its maturation status, and we show how delayed reaction diffusion equations with nonlocal interactions arise naturally. We then consider the impact of this delayed nonlocal interaction on the disease spread by revisiting the spatial spread of rabies in continental Europe during the period between 1945 and 1985. We show how the distinction of territorial patterns between juvenile and adult foxes, the main carriers of the rabies under consideration, yields a class of partial differential equations involving delayed and nonlocal terms that are implicitly defined by a hyperbolic-parabolic equation, and we show how incorporating this distinction into the model leads to a formula describing the relation of the minimal wave speed and the maturation time of foxes. We show how the homotopy argument developed by Chow, Lin, and Mallet-Paret can be applied to obtain the existence of a heteroclinic orbit between a disease-free equilibrium and an endemic state for the spatially averaged system of delay differential equations, and we illustrate how the technique developed by Faria, Huang, and Wu can be used to establish the existence of a family of traveling wavefronts in the neighborhood of the heteroclinic orbit for the corresponding spatial model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]