How to Design a Biomonitoring Study – A Practical Guide for Veterinary Professionals under a One Health Approach

Abstract

Currently, veterinarians can see their daily practice and medical tasks as constant opportunities for passive surveillance of One Health threats, such as infectious zoonotic diseases and chemical pollution effects on living beings. The present study aimed to provide a practical guide to designing a biomonitoring study during veterinary clinical practice without time-consuming procedures or significant costs. The constant access to several species’ specimens provides the necessary samples to perform a biomonitoring study of environmental pollutants at the regional or national level. Generally, most health professionals know what to do (or where to find information) to report a disease outbreak. However, a summarized background to perform a biomonitoring study of a chemical hazard is missing. The authors of the current study provided a flow chart with the main steps to conduct a biomonitoring study in different fields of veterinary medicine. Thus, a biomonitoring study might give veterinarians (as other health professionals) a positive contribution to the clinical cases’ resolution, while improving the general knowledge about the impact of environmental contamination on animals and human health.