What is One Health on a Global Scale

The One Health Initiative has been making headlines recently and is a major topic of discussion across numerous fields, especially healthcare. As the world struggles with the medical, emotional, and financial effects of a string of public health concerns, from the global outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the spread of Ebola to the reemergence of the screwworm, One Health proposes taking an integrated approach to public health that recognizes the intertwined nature of humans, animals, and the environment.

According the One Health Initiative website, “One Health is an integrated, collaborative approach that recognizes the deep interdependence between the health of people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. It seeks to bridge human medicine, veterinary medicine, and the environmental sciences in surveillance, research, prevention, and control of zoonotic diseases with complex life cycles and is now established as a mainstream component of public health.” 

“This is a very smart and holistic approach to public health,” says Dr. Daniel Griffin, President and Co-Founder of Parasites Without Borders. “It recognizes that the health of living entities is intertwined and reflective of each other. By taking a collaborative overview of emerging and reemerging infections, whether they be vector-borne or zoonotic, healthcare professionals, veterinarians, environmental scientists, policy makers, and public health officials can work together to take preventative rather than reactive measures.”

One Health is not new, but as interactions between people, animals, plants, and the environment changes, it has become more important in recent years. As the global population grows, humans and animals, both domestic and wild, are sharing more spaces, and co-exist in closer proximity, creating more opportunities for disease to pass between them. Climate and land-use change have altered our environment, creating conditions where diseases can be more easily transmitted to humans and animals. And with international trade and travel becoming more prominent, there is more opportunity for diseases to spread quickly. 

One Health issues include, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), emerging, re-emerging, and endemic zoonotic diseases, neglected tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and food security, environmental contamination, climate change, and other health threats shared by people, animals, and the environment. And creating a unified approach is as simple as including experts in human, animal, environmental health, and relevant disciplines to have a seat at the table when it comes to public health.

“Public health shouldn’t only concern human health,” says Dr. Griffin. “It’s the health of our entire world and all living creatures. You look at the proverbial canary in the coal mine. If one of those systems is in crisis, chances are that everyone and everything will feel the effects eventually. It’s about experts coming together and looking at the entire picture and using their strengths to come up with a collaborative approach. Together, we can be much more successful.”

To listen to a discussion on the promise of a One Health approach to prevent outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, check out This Week in Virology Episode 1043, where Dr. Vincent Racaniello speaks with guest Marion Koopmans at the European Society of Clinical Virology meeting in Milan back in September of 2023.