One Health & Implementation Research: Improving Health for All

Abstract

Current socio-ecological challenges such as climate change, destruction of natural habitats, species extinction, urbanization, and emerging zoonotic diseases severely impact the health of people, wildlife, and domestic animals. The One Health approach considers a holistic view including humans, animals, and the environment, and it is a multidisciplinary and integrated approach to understand occurrence of diseases, epidemics, and emerging antimicrobial resistance, by including medical, veterinary, wildlife, biological, agricultural, and social sciences, architecture, and the environment. One Health is indispensable to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to develop effective and evidence-based responses to the current local, national, and global health threats. Communicable and non-communicable diseases, zoonoses, and increasing antimicrobial resistance demand a comprehensive understanding of the relation between health and disease, as well as their determinants, on a global scale. The presence and absence of diseases and health conditions are determined by a variety of factors, including those related to people and society, animal health, governance and health systems, and environment and climate change [Figure 1]. The processes leading to disease and conditions are intrinsically interlinked with each other, within a complex web of causation. To attain particularly SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), health systems and the delivery of public health policies need to be strengthened. Often, there are underlying systemic and political issues, structural changes, and funding gaps hampering these efforts. The roll-out of control programs can also be improved. Interventions can only be effective and sustainable when performed in line with major stakeholder groups