One Health – A Shortcourse

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210 – June, 2021

By Sue M. Copeland

One Health. Those two simple words combine to describe a global initiative that aims to improve your health and that of your dog’s (and other animals)—plus your environment.

The movement is based on the concept that humans, animals, and the world we live in are connected: What impacts one, impacts all. One Health is a collaboration of individuals working locally, nationally, and globally to address current and potential health and welfare issues. It links the medical and veterinary worlds, from doctors and veterinarians, to researchers and public health workers, to form a holistic approach to world health.

THE BACKSTORY

Seeds for One Health were planted in 1962, when an Institute of Medicine report described the threat of “zoonotic” disease (that which can spread between humans and animals, such as bird flu). Then in 1964, Dr. Calvin Schwabe, a former World Health Organization (WHO) member and founding chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, developed the One Medicine theory.

With it, Dr. Schwabe called for collaboration between human and wildlife pathologists as a means of controlling and even preventing zoonotic disease spread. In his book entitled “Veterinary Medicine and Human Health,” he advocated a combined medical and veterinary approach to such diseases.

One Health builds on that collaboration. In 2004, the concept was advanced during a Wildlife Conservation Society conference on “One World, One Health: Building Interdisciplinary Bridges to Health in a Globalized World.” The conference outcome was to set priorities for an international, multidiscipline strategy for combating threats to the health of human, domestic animal, and wildlife populations, plus that of their environments. (See www.oneworldonehealth.org.) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; cdc.gov), One Health issues include not only zoonotic diseases, but also antimicrobial (antibiotic) resistance, food safety and security, vector-borne diseases, environmental contamination, and other health threats shared by people, animals, and the environment.

That collaborative approach means that One Health research benefits are multi-dimensional. For instance, canine research can help you, and human research can help your dog.

CANINE CONNECTION

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210 – June, 2021

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Posted by AnthonyA on Jun 14 2021. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.