Monday, October 12, 2020

One Health - Linking Human, Animal & Ecosystem Health

 Finally, a splendid initiative to capture the complexities of the life of earth!

This is the must-have knowledge tp make us humble and start to understand the complex interdependencies. The genesis of fake news to conspiracy theories is caused by ignoring these complex interdependencies and forcefully looking for simple answers which don't exist. 

Check out One Health and you can follow them on twitter

Definitions of One Health

One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral, and trans-disciplinary approach - working at local, regional, national, and global levels - to achieve optimal health and well-being outcomes recognizing the interconnections between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.

Scope of One Health
 
Some people misunderstand and think that One Health is about everything therefore if must be about nothing.  But the truth is that One Health thinking (see definition above) and implementation is needed in so many arenas that it just seems to be about 'everything'.
 
Here are a few areas that urgently need the One Health approach, at all levels of academia, government, industry, policy and research,  because of the inextricable interconnectedness of animal, environmental, human, plant and planet health:
  • Agricultural production and land use
  • Animals as Sentinels for Environmental agent and contaminants detection and response
  • Antimicrobial resistance mitigation
  • Biodiversity / Conservation Medicine
  • Climate change and impacts of climate on health of animals, ecosystems, and humans
  • Clinical medicine needs for interrelationship between the health professions
  • Communications and outreach
  • Comparative Medicine: commonality of diseases among people and animals such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes
  • Disaster preparedness and response
  • Disease surveillance, prevention and response, both infectious (zoonotic) and chronic diseases
  • Economics / Complex Systems, Civil Society
  • Environmental Health
  • Food Safety and Security
  • Global trade, commerce and security
  • Human - Animal bond
  • Natural Resources Conservation
  • Occupational Health Risks
  • Plant / Soil health
  • Professional education and training of the Next Generation of One Health professionals
  • Public policy and regulation
  • Research, both basic and translational
  • Water Safety and Security
  • Welfare / Well-being of animals, humans, ecosystems and planet

Potential Outcomes from the One Health Approach:
  • More interdisciplinary programs in education, training, research, and established policy (See http://bit.ly/2Hld7pl )
  • More information sharing related to disease detection, diagnosis, education and research 
  • More prevention of diseases, both infectious and chronic
  • Development of new therapies and approaches to treatments

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