What is One Health?
Interconnected health care
One Health is an approach for solving problems based on the idea that the health and well-being of humans, animals and the environment are interconnected and mutually important. It is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary framework that operates across local, regional, national, and global levels to promote optimal health outcomes by acknowledging the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and the environment they share.
WHY IS ONE HEALTH RESEARCH IMPORTANT?
Rapid population growth and expansion into new geographic areas have increased contact between people and both wild and domestic animals, including livestock and pets. Animals are central to food systems, livelihoods, transportation, recreation, education, and companionship, but closer proximity to animals and their environments also heightens opportunities for diseases to spread between species. At the same time, climate change, deforestation, and intensive agricultural practices have disrupted ecosystems and altered disease transmission pathways. Increased international travel and trade further accelerate the global spread of infectious agents. Collectively, these forces have contributed to the emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic diseases—those transmissible between animals and humans—which affect millions of people and animals worldwide each year.
Key Challenges
Key One Health challenges include emerging, re-emerging and endemic zoonotic diseases, neglected tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and food security, environmental contamination, and climate-related health threats. No single discipline can adequately address health threats at the human–animal–environment nexus alone, the One Health approach emphasizes cross-sector coordination as essential to achieving lasting health benefits for people, animals and ecosystems.
