One Health 
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Disease Risk from Human-Environment Interactions: Environment and Development Economics for Joint Conservation-Health Policy
Emergence of COVID-19 joins a collection of evidence that local and global health are infuenced by human interactions with the natural environment. Frameworks that simultaneously model decisions to interact with natural systems and environmental mechanisms of zoonotic disease spread allow for identifcation of policy levers to mitigate disease risk and promote conservation.
Improving rural health care reduces illegal logging and conserves carbon in a tropical forest
Tropical forest loss currently exceeds forest gain, leading to a net greenhouse gas emission that exacerbates global climate change. This has sparked scientific debate on how to achieve natural climate solutions. Central to this debate is whether sustainably managing forests and protected areas will deliver global climate mitigation benefits, while ensuring local peoples’ health and wellbeing. Here, we evaluate the 10-y impact of a human-centered solution to achieve natural climate mitigation through reductions in illegal logging in rural Borneo: an intervention aimed at expanding health care access and use for communities living near a national park, with clinic discounts offsetting costs historically met through illegal logging. Conservation, education, and alternative livelihood programs were also offered. We hypothesized that this would lead to improved health and well-being, while also alleviating illegal logging activity within the protected forest.
Technical guidelines on rapid risk assessment for animal health threats
When an imminent threat or emergency arises from an animal health event, it is important to conduct a rapid risk assessment (RRA) that informs animal health decision-makers of the most efficient control measures that they can take to control the disease concerned. These technical guidelines on rapid risk assessment provide a simple and practical tool that assists decision-makers in veterinary departments in conducting qualitative RRAs on the emergence, incursion and/or spread of animal health events caused by infectious diseases.
Training Manual on Wildlife Diseases and Surveillance
The OIE launched a global programme of capacity building for OIE Delegates and OIE Focal Points on different topics in 2009. The aim of this programme and the related regional training workshops is to explain and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the Focal Points nominated by the OIE Delegates and to facilitate consistency and harmonisation amongst OIE Members when assigning responsibilities to these officials... This training manual contains the core curriculum for the part of a workshop intended to inform and assist National Focal Points for Wildlife of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to gather and report information regarding the occurrence of wild animal pathogens and diseases in each of the OIE Members.
Ecological Countermeasures for Preventing Zoonotic Disease Outbreaks: When Ecological Restoration is a Human Health Imperative
Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of this principle. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land use-induced zoonotic spillover. We provide examples of ecological restoration activities that reduce zoonotic disease risk and a five-point action plan at the human-ecosystem health nexus. In conclusion, we make the case that ecological countermeasures are a tenet of restoration ecology with human health goals.
CHANS-Law: Preventing the Next Pandemic through the Integration of Social and Environmental Law
Zoonotic viruses have sacrifced hundreds of millions of people throughout human history. There are currently 1.7 million unidentifed viruses estimated to be circulating in mammal and bird populations. It is foreseeable that in the near future, another of these will transmit to people, heralding the start of the next pandemic-- one potentially more deadly than COVID-19. At the core of this article is a call for pre-emptive protection of the natural environment and its regenerative systems as the frst fundamental step in the prevention of future epidemics and pandemics.
Developing a One Health Approach by Using a Multi-Dimensional Matrix
The One Health concept that human, animal, plant, environmental, and ecosystem health are linked provides a framework for examining and addressing complex health challenges. This framework can be represented as a multi-dimensional matrix that can be used as a tool to identify upstream drivers of disease potential in a concise, systematic, and comprehensive way. The matrix can involve up to four dimensions depending on users’ needs. This paper describes and illustrates how the matrix tool might be used to facilitate systems thinking, enabling the development of effective and equitable public policies. The multidimensional One Health matrix tool will be used to examine, as an example, global human and animal fecal wastes. The fecal wastes are analyzed at the microbial and population levels over a timeframe of years. Political, social, and economic factors are part of the matrix and will be examined as well. The One Health matrix tool illustrates how foodborne illnesses, food insecurity, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change are inter-related. Understanding these inter-relationships is essential to develop the public policies needed to achieve many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
A Framework to Guide Planetary Health Education
People around the world are increasingly facing the pressing challenges of today's interconnected environmental, social, and health crises. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an important wake-up call reminding us that we need a healthy planet to ensure the health of all people. The emerging field of planetary health is a framework for understanding these interconnections and identifying solutions to the complex challenges confronting our civilization.
Pollution and health: a progress update
The Lancet Commission on pollution and health reported that pollution was responsible for 9 million premature deaths in 2015, making it the world’s largest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death. We have now updated this estimate using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuriaes, and Risk Factors Study 2019. We find that pollution remains responsible for approximately 9 million deaths per year, corresponding to one in six deaths worldwide. Reductions have occurred in the number of deaths attributable to the types of pollution associated with extreme poverty. However, these reductions in deaths from household air pollution and water pollution are offset by increased deaths attributable to ambient air pollution and toxic chemical pollution (ie, lead).
Wildlife Trade, Pandemics and the Law: Fighting this year's virus with last year's law
This paper is the follow-up to a brief survey of legislation conducted by Legal Atlas in June of 2020 on existing legal approaches to controlling zoonotic disease risk in the context of wildlife trade. The original research was a rapid review conducted to provide some background in response to the numerous articles in international media calling for legal reforms during the first months of the 2020 COVID pandemic.
Report of the Scientific Task Force on Preventing Pandemics
The report contains key findings and recommendations for research and action to inform pandemic prevention. The task force found that evidence strongly establishes spillover of viruses from wildlife into people, sometimes via livestock, as the root cause of pandemic risk. Spillover of the viruses currently understood to have pandemic potential occurs from land use change, and in particular the destruction of tropical forests, expansion of agricultural lands, especially near human settlements, livestock and farmed wildlife intensification, and wild animal hunting and trade.
Working Together to Protect Australia in the Age of Pandemics
The COVID-19 pandemic has infiltrated every level of social, cultural and political life and has demonstrated the truly devastating effects of ineffective pandemic management systems. Yet, the likelihood of another pandemic occurring in the short to medium term is greater than ever. The drivers of pandemics are not improving. Anthropogenic drivers, including agricultural intensification, land-use changes such as deforestation and urbanisation, wildlife trade, and climate change are all contributing to what has been called the ‘era of pandemics.
International law reform for One Health notifications
Epidemic risk assessment and response relies on rapid information sharing. Using examples from the past decade, we discuss the limitations of the present system for outbreak notifications, which suffers from ambiguous obligations, fragile incentives, and an overly narrow focus on human outbreaks. We examine existing international legal frameworks, and provide clarity on what a successful One Health approach to proposed international law reforms— including a pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations—would require. In particular, we focus on how a treaty would provide opportunities to simultaneously expand reporting obligations, accelerate the sharing of scientific discoveries, and strengthen existing legal frameworks, all while addressing the most complex issues that global health governance currently faces.
Role of Pollution on the Selection of Antibiotic Resistance and Bacterial Pathogens in the Environment
There is evidence that human activity causes pollution that contributes to an enhanced selection of bacterial pathogens in the environment. In this review, we consider how environmental pollution can favour the selection of bacterial pathogens in the environment. We specifically discuss pollutants released into the environment by human activities (mainly human waste) that are associated with the selection for genetic features in environmental bacterial populations that lead to the emergence of bacterial pathogens.
Outbreaks of Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases are Associated with Changes in Forest Cover and Oil Palm Expansion at Global Scale
Deforestation is a major cause of biodiversity loss with a negative impact on human health. This study explores at global scale whether the loss and gain of forest cover and the rise of oil palm plantations can promote outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases.
Investigating the Risks of Removing Wild Meat from Global Food Systems
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to calls to prohibit wild meat consumption, to protect public health and biodiversity. However, Booth et al. demonstrate that the sudden removal of wild meat from food systems could negatively impact people and nature. Wildlife trade policy interventions need to consider tele-couplings between food systems and nature.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Health Agenda
A stable climate and healthy ecosystems provide the basic underpinnings of human welfare and development. Failure to tackle global warming, mass biodiversity loss and other pressing environmental problems threatens the achievement of every single one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with catastrophic consequences that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable communities first and hardest (UNEP 2021). International action has not matched the scale of the challenge.
Wild Animal and Zoonotic Disease Risk Management and Regulation in China: Examining gaps and One Health opportunities in scope, mandates, and monitoring systems
Emerging diseases of zoonotic origin such as COVID-19 are a continuing public health threat in China that lead to a significant socioeconomic burden. This study reviewed the current laws and regulations, government reports and policy documents, and existing literature on zoonotic disease preparedness and prevention across the forestry, agriculture, and public health authorities in China, to articulate the current landscape of potential risks, existing mandates, and gaps.
Aquaculture at the Crossroads of Global Warming and Antimicrobial Resistance
In many developing countries, aquaculture is key to ensuring food security for millions of people. It is thus important to measure the full implications of environmental changes on the sustainability of aquaculture. We conduct a double meta-analysis (460 articles) to explore how global warming and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) impact aquaculture. We calculate a Multi-Antibiotic Resistance index (MAR) of aquaculture-related bacteria (11,274 isolates) for 40 countries, of which mostly low- and middle-income countries present high AMR levels.
Taking a Multisectoral, One Health Approach: A Tripartite Guide to Addressing Zoonotic Diseases in Countries
Every day we hear about health challenges at the human-animal-environment interface. Zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, rabies, Ebola, and Rift Valley fever, as well as food-borne diseases and antimicrobial resistance, continue to have major impacts on health, livelihoods, and economies. Many countries recognize the benefits of taking a One Health approach that is multisectoral and multidisciplinary to build national mechanisms for coordination, communication, and collaboration to address health threats at the human-animal environment interface.
Biodiversity and Human Health Interlinkages in Higher Education Offerings: A First Global Overview
Biodiversity is inextricably linked to human health. As an important area of research of the Convention on Biological Diversity and a key avenue for the dissemination of biodiversity and health knowledge, we investigated how well-embedded biodiversity and health interlinkages are in institutional higher education offerings.
Strategies for Implementing a One Welfare Framework into Emergency Management
During emergencies, people’s decision-making and actions are strongly influenced by their relationship with their animals. In emergency management, a holistic approach is needed which recognises the important interrelationships between animal welfare, human well-being, and the physical and social environment. It is also vital to break down barriers of collaboration between individuals, organisations, and the community. One Welfare, a concept with human–animal-environment interdependencies at its core, provides a framework to achieve this. Successful implementation of a transformative change will require positive strategies to deal with challenges and to ensure that animals are truly integrated into emergency management, not just included as an aside.
A One Health Glossary to Support Communication and Information Exchange Between Human Health, Animal Health and Food Safety Sectors
Collaboration across sectors, disciplines and countries is a key concept to achieve the overarching One Health (OH) objective for better human, animal and environmental health. Differences in terminology and interpretation of terms are still a significant hurdle for cross-sectoral information exchange and collaboration within the area of OH including One Health Surveillance (OHS). The development of the here described glossary is a collaborative effort of three projects funded within the One Health European Joint Programme (OHEJP).
Does deforestation drive visceral leishmaniasis transmission? A casual analysis
Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are important contributors to the global disease burden and are a key factor in perpetuating economic inequality. Although environmental changes are often cited as drivers of VBDs, the link between deforestation and VBD occurrence remains unclear. Here, we examined this relationship in detail using the spread of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in São Paulo state (Brazil) as the case study.
A Tool for Rapid Assessment of Wildlife Markets in the Asia-Pacific Region for Risk of Future Zoonotic Disease Outbreaks
Decades of warnings that the trade and consumption of wildlife could result in serious zoonotic pandemics have gone largely unheeded. Now the world is ravaged by COVID-19, with tremendous loss of life, economic and societal disruption, and dire predictions of more destructive and frequent pandemics. There are now calls to tightly regulate and even enact complete wildlife trade bans, while others call for more nuanced approaches since many rural communities rely on wildlife for sustenance. Given pressures from political and societal drivers and resource limitations to enforcing bans, increased regulation is a more likely outcome rather than broad bans. But imposition of tight regulations will require monitoring and assessing trade situations for zoonotic risks. We present a tool for relevant stakeholders, including government authorities in the public health and wildlife sectors, to assess wildlife trade situations for risks of potentially serious zoonoses in order to inform policies to tightly regulate and control the trade, much of which is illegal in most countries. The tool is based on available knowledge of different wildlife taxa traded in the Asia-Pacific Region and known to carry highly virulent and transmissible viruses combined with relative risks associated with different broad categories of market types and trade chains.
Guidance on mainstreaming biodiversity for nutrition and health
While human ingenuity and innovation have made considerable strides in meeting growing demands for food, shelter and energy over the past century, this progress has carried very high social and environmental costs (1). At present, more than one third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production (2). These impacts could rise 50–90% by 2050 without a significant transformation of global food systems (2–4). At the same time, the global food system – which fails to provide all people with healthy, safe, affordable and sustainable diets – is a central factor in current trends of malnutrition in all its forms (1,5–7). Poor diets have now become the single-most important driver of mortality globally accounting for nearly 11 million premature adult deaths per year (7).
Strengthening Health Security Across the Globe: Progress and Impact of United States Government Investments in the Global Health Security Agenda
In 2020, the United States partnered with over 40 countries, including 19 Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) countries (called Intensive Support countries) described in this report, to provide operational and technical assistance to build their health security capacities. The need for these capacities in every country has never been more clear. As of July 6, 2021, more than 3.9 million people have died and over 183 million people have been infected by COVID-19 in more than 200 countries.
Manual for the management of operations during an animal health emergency
This manual provides guidelines for countries and relevant local, national, regional and international organizations to prepare for and manage operations during animal health emergencies.
Practical Actions to Operationalize the One Health Approach in the Asian Development Bank
One Health is an approach to human, animal, plant, and ecological health challenges that starts from a simple premise: these are all interconnected, and their solution demands communication, coordination, and collaboration across multiple sectors, disciplines, and levels of government. Using One Health as a framework is key to post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) green economic recovery, reaching the Sustainable Development Goals, and global health security. The One Health concept is rapidly gaining traction in the development space and in developing member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Land Use-Induced Spillover: A Call to Action to Safeguard Environmental, Animal, and Human Health
The rapid global spread and human health impacts of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, show humanity’s vulnerability to zoonotic disease pandemics. Although anthropogenic land use change is known to be the major driver of zoonotic pathogen spillover from wildlife to human populations, the scientific underpinnings of land use-induced zoonotic spillover have rarely been investigated from the landscape perspective. We call for interdisciplinary collaborations to advance knowledge on land use implications for zoonotic disease emergence with a view toward informing the decisions needed to protect human health.
Coronavirus Testing Indicates Transmission Risk Increases along Wildlife Supply Chains for Human Consumption in Viet Nam
Outbreaks of emerging coronaviruses in the past two decades and the current pandemic of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged in China highlight the importance of this viral family as a zoonotic public health threat.
Information About Zoonotic Disease Risks Reduces Desire to Own Exotic Pets Among Global Consumers
Demand for exotic pets is a substantial driver of the illegal wildlife trade. Previous work has suggested that this demand could be reduced by conservation marketing messaging highlighting the potential consequences to individual purchasers, in the form of zoonotic disease risks, or legal ramifications. Such work, however, has been limited only to respondents from culturally Western countries, and has not accounted for how underlying attitudes to the keeping of exotic pets may influence desire to own one, or affect the effectiveness of demand reduction messaging.
Small Mammal Glucocorticoid Concentrations vary with Forest Fragment Size, Trap Type, and Mammal Taxa in the Interior Atlantic Forest
Species that live in degraded habitats often show signs of physiological stress. Glucocorticoid hormones (e.g., corticosterone and cortisol) are often assessed as a proxy of the extent of physiological stress an animal has experienced. Our goal was to quantify glucocorticoids in free-ranging small mammals in fragments of Interior Atlantic Forest.
Climate Change-Triggered Land Degredation and Planetary Health: A Review
Land is a vital natural resource for human socio-ecological wellbeing. Around the world, land is being degraded due to various natural and anthropogenic factors such as flooding, wind erosion, agriculture and human settlement, and anthropogenic climate change. While significant research has been conducted on the separate dyads of: (1) anthropogenic climate change and land degradation and (2) land degradation and health, limited consideration has been given to the cause-and-effect relationships between anthropogenic climate change-triggered land degradation and planetary health consequences.
Antimicrobial Resistance and Environmental Health: A Water Stewardship Framework for Global and National Action
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health crisis that affects all life on Earth. In 2015, the World Health Organization developed guidance to combat AMR in accordance with a One Health framework considering human, animal, and environment sectors of planetary health. This study reviewed global guidance and 25 National Action Plans to evaluate thematic priorities in One Health AMR approaches using a novel framework that additionally facilitated the identification of water-related stewardship gaps, as water resources are recognized as the primary environmental AMR reservoir and dissemination pathway. This review found that global and national stewardship primarily focuses on mitigating antibiotic use in the human and animal sectors, overlooking environmental drivers, particularly diverse environmental waters.
A Systems Approach to Evaluate One Health Initiatives
Challenges calling for integrated approaches to health, such as the One Health (OH) approach, typically arise from the intertwined spheres of humans, animals, and ecosystems constituting their environment. Initiatives addressing such wicked problems commonly consist of complex structures and dynamics. As a result of the EU COST Action (TD 1404) “Network for Evaluation of One Health” (NEOH), we propose an evaluation framework anchored in systems theory to address the intrinsic complexity of OH initiatives and regard them as subsystems of the context within which they operate.
Land-use Change and Rodent-borne Diseases: Hazards on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
Land-use change has a direct impact on species survival and reproduction, altering their spatio-temporal distributions. It acts as a selective force that favours the abundance and diversity of reservoir hosts and affects host-pathogen dynamics and prevalence. This has led to land-use change being a significant driver of infectious diseases emergence.
Post COVID-19: A Solution Scan of Options for Preventing Future Zoonotic Epidemics
The crisis generated by the emergence and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has thrown into the global spotlight the dangers associated with novel diseases, as well as the key role of animals, especially wild animals, as potential sources of pathogens to humans. There is a widespread demand for a new relationship with wild and domestic animals, including suggested bans on hunting, wildlife trade, wet markets or consumption of wild animals. However, such policies risk ignoring essential elements of the problem as well as alienating and increasing hardship for local communities across the world, and might be unachievable at scale. There is thus a need for a more complex package of policy and practical responses.
Biodiversity and Health in the Urban Environment
A key research gap is to understand—and evidence—the specific causal pathways through which biodiversity affects human health. A mechanistic understanding of pathways linking biodiversity to human health can facilitate the application of nature-based solutions in public health and influence policy. Research integration as well as cross-sector urban policy and planning development should harness opportunities to better identify linkages between biodiversity, climate and human health. Given its importance for human health, urban biodiversity conservation should be considered as public health investment.
Forests Moderate the Effectiveness of Water Treatment at Reducing Childhood Diarrhea
Environmental degradation has been associated with increased burden of diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition. As a result, some have argued that continuing ecosystem change could undermine successes in global health investments. Here we conduct an empirical study to investigate this concern. Child deaths due to diarrhea have more than halved since the year 2000, partly due to increased access to improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). We examine how the effectiveness of a water quality treatment may vary as a function of upstream watershed condition.
PAHO One Health: A Comprehensive Approach for Addressing Health at the Human-Animal-Environment Interface
The aim of this policy on One Health is to foster coordination and collaboration among the different governance frameworks of human, animal, plant, and environmental health programs in order to better prevent and prepare for current and future health challenges at the human-animal-environment interface.
Gaps in Health Security Related to Wildlife and Environment Affecting Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness
Improved health security is crucial for global and national health systems to counter infectious disease epidemics and their wide-scale socioeconomic consequences. The importance of a One Health multisectoral and collaborative approach – one that recognizes the connection between the health of humans, animals and ecosystems – has been acknowledged for years following introduction of the term in the early 2000s. Although significant advancements in multisectoral coordination have been made over the past decade, the overwhelming focus has been on human and domestic animal health; scant attention has been paid to the risks and impacts of zoonotic diseases at wildlife–human or wildlife–livestock interfaces, or to the role of changing environmental conditions. The consequences of this neglect have been costly and deadly with thousands of known zoonotic disease outbreaks in recent decades linked to wildlife...
Global Hotspots and Correlates of Emerging Zoonotic Diseases
Zoonoses originating from wildlife represent a significant threat to global health, security and economic growth, and combatting their emergence is a public health priority. However, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their emergence remains rudimentary. Here we update a global database of emerging infectious disease (EID) events, create a novel measure of reporting effort, and fit boosted regression tree models to analyze the demographic, environmental and biological correlates of their occurrence.
Good emergency management practice: The essentials
Animal health emergencies arising from infectious diseases and other threats have a high potential to spread rapidly within a country or around the world. These events appear to be increasing as a result of growing animal populations, their concentration and market intensification, human and animal movements, and global trade. This trend is enhanced by the management capacity issues of animal health services as has been evident in the difficulties faced during the COVID-19 pandemic for field service delivery. Animal health emergencies globally impact the food security and livelihoods of nearly half of the 900 million people living in poverty who depend on livestock to survive. They can, therefore, significantly impede progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals. When high impact emerging and zoonotic diseases are involved, early and coordinated responses can prevent the next pandemic.
One Health legislation: Contributing to pandemic prevention through law
The COVID-19 pandemic and other emerging infectious diseases, as well as the continuing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), are reminding us of the close connections between human, animal and environmental health and the urgent need to address them in a holistic manner. Among newly discovered or emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), 75 percent are zoonotic (i.e. transmitted from animals to humans) (Taylor, Latham and Woolhouse, 2001). The unregulated expansion of livestock farming encroaches upon pristine habitats, pushing domestic animals, humans and wildlife into closer and more frequent contact, creating the same tinderbox for disease in animals as they do in humans (FAO, 2011a). Deforestation and other land use changes have an important part in the emergence of disease (Wilcox and Ellis, 2006).
Land-based Measures to Mitigate Climate Change: Potential and Feasibility by Country
Land-based climate mitigation measures have gained significant attention and importance in public and private sector climate policies. Building on previous studies,we refine and update the mitigation potentials for 20 land-based measures in >200 countries and five regions, comparing “bottom-up” sectoral estimates with integrated assessment models (IAMs).
The COVID-19 Pandemic is Intricately Linked to Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Health
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, caused by zoonotic SARS-CoV-2, has important links to biodiversity loss and ecosystem health. These links range from anthropogenic activities driving zoonotic disease emergence and extend to the pandemic affecting biodiversity conservation, environmental policy, ecosystem services, and multiple conservation facets. Crucially, such effects can exacerbate the initial drivers, resulting in feedback loops that are likely to promote future zoonotic disease outbreaks.
Preventing the Next Pandemic -- Zoonotic Disease and How to Break Chain of Transmission
This report is one of the first that specifically focuses on the environmental side of the zoonotic dimension of disease outbreaks during the COVID-19 pandemic. It tries to fill a critical knowledge gap and provide policymakers with a better understanding of the context and nature of potential future zoonotic disease outbreaks. It examines the root causes of the COVID-19 pandemic and other “zoonoses,” which the World Health Organization defines as human diseases or infections that are naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans.
Amphibian Collapses Increased Malaria Incidence in Central America
Biodiversity in ecosystems plays an important role in supporting human welfare, including regulating the transmission of infectious diseases. This report leverages a unique ensemble of ecological surveys, satellite data, and newly digitized public health records to show an empirical link between a wave of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis-driven collapse of amphibians in Costa Rica and Panama and increased human malaria incidence.
Roadmap for Achieving Net‑Zero Emissions in Global Food Systems by 2050
Food systems (FSs) emit about 20 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (~ 35% of global greenhouse gas emissions). This level tends to raise given the expected increases in food demands, which may threaten global climate targets. This work provides options and a vision to guide global FSs to achieving net-zero by 2050.
Predicting the Potential for Zoonotic Transmission and Host Associations for Novel Viruses
Host-virus associations have co-evolved under ecological and evolutionary selection pressures that shape cross-species transmission and spillover to humans. Observed virus-host associations provide relevant context for newly discovered wildlife viruses to assess knowledge gaps in host-range and estimate pathways for potential human infection. Using models to predict virus-host networks, we predicted the likelihood of humans as hosts for 513 newly discovered viruses detected by large-scale wildlife surveillance at high-risk animal-human interfaces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Extend Existing Food Safety Systems to the Global Wildlife Trade
This article discusses the suspected role of the wildlife trade in the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of new emerging infectious diseases in humans have received widespread attention since the emergence of COVID-19. A range of measures to prevent future pandemics have been suggested, from a global ban of commercial trade in wildlife to bans of wild animals for human consumption.
Effectiveness and Profitability of Preventive Veterinary Interventions in Controlling Infectious Diseases of Ruminant Livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review
Agriculture in general, and livestock production in particular, serve as a livelihood source for many people in sub-Saharan Africa. In many settings, lack of control of infectious diseases hampers livestock productivity, under-mining the livelihood of rural populations. This scoping review sought to identify veterinary interventions previously evaluated as well as their relative effectiveness in controlling infectious livestock diseases.
Disease Control Tools to Secure Animal and Public Health in a Densely Populated World
Animal health is a prerequisite for global health, economic development, food security, food quality, and poverty reduction, while mitigating against climate change and biodiversity loss. This report details a qualitative review of 53 infectious diseases in terrestrial animals. It proposes and discusses five research priorities for animal health that will help to deliver a sustainable and healthy planet: vaccinology, antimicrobial resistance, climate mitigation and adaptation, digital health, and epidemic preparedness.
The Future of Fungi: Threats and Opportunities
The fungal kingdom represents an extraordinary diversity of organisms with profound impacts across animal, plant, and ecosystem health. With climate change, increased antimicrobial resistance, global trade, environmental degradation, and novel viruses altering the impact of fungi on health and disease, developing new approaches is now more crucial than ever to combat the threats posed by fungi and to harness their extraordinary potential for applications in human health, food supply, and environmental remediation. This report provides recommendations to accelerate fungal research and highlights major research advances.
Wildlife Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases at Global Scales
Disease transmission prediction across wildlife is crucial for risk assessment of emerging infectious diseases. Susceptibility of host species to pathogens is influenced by the geographic, environmental, and phylogenetic context of the specific system under study. This study uses machine learning to analyze how such variables influence pathogen incidence for multi-host pathogen assemblages.
Changing Food Systems and Infection Disease Risks in Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries
The emergence of COVID-19 has drawn the attention of health researchers sharply back to the role that food systems can play in generating human disease burden. But emerging pandemic threats are just one dimension of the complex relationship between agriculture and infectious disease, which is evolving rapidly, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries that are undergoing rapid food system transformation. This resource examines this changing relationship through four current disease issues.
Aligning Conservation and Public Health Goals to Tackle Unsustainable Trade of Mammals
Unsustainable wildlife trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss and an important public health threat. Yet, effective wildlife trade regulation is currently at odds with food security and economic incentives provided by this global, multibillion-dollar industry. Given such limitations, public health and conservation resources can be aligned to target species for which trade both increases risk of extinction and threatens public health. This study provides a preliminary step in prioritizing species, taxonomic groups, and countries for focused wildlife trade regulation to meet both conservation and public health goals.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and One Health - A Call for Action to Integrate
One Health (OH) has gained considerable prominence since the beginning of the 21st century, among others, driven by the recent epidemics and the increasing importance of zoonotic diseases but most emphasis has been on the interactions between animal and human health, with considerably less attention to environmental and plant health. There is growing evidence that the challenges of climate change, growing food and nutritional insecurity, and biodiversity loss can best be addressed within the context of the OH framework. Conceptionally, IPM could perfectly fit into such an approach. New approaches detailed in this report offer solutions on how to successfully embed IPM into a OH framework.
The Evolution of One Health: A Decade of Progress and Challenges for the Future
In the early years of the 21st century, emerging zoonotic viruses that had the potential to cause pandemic disease, including extensive human mortality, created several international crises (Gibbs 2005). Governments and scientists worldwide recognised that greater interdisciplinary collaboration was required to prevent and control zoonoses, and that such collaboration should include not only physicians and veterinarians, but also wildlife specialists, environmentalists, anthropologists, economists and sociologists, among others. The expression ‘One Health’ was proposed as a concept to foster such interdisciplinary collaboration.
Compendium of WHO and other UN Guidance on Health and Environment
The World Health Organization (WHO) and other United Nations (UN) organizations have published extensive guidance on a range of essential health topics over the years, specifically addressing disease, environmental pollutants, children’s health, among many other topics.
IPBES Workshop on Biodiversity and Pandemics
Pandemics represent an existential threat to the health and welfare of people across our planet. The scientific evidence reviewed in this report demonstrates that pandemics are becoming more frequent, driven by a continued rise in the underlying emerging disease events that spark them. Without preventative strategies, pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, kill more people, and affect the global economy with a more devastating impact than ever before.
A Comparison of Three Holistic Approaches to Health: One Health, EcoHealth, and Planetary Health
Several holistic and interdisciplinary approaches exist to safeguard health. Three of the most influential concepts at the moment, One Health, EcoHealth, and Planetary Health, are analyzed in this paper, revealing similarities and differences at the theoretical conceptual level. These approaches may appear synonymous, as they all promote the underlying assumption of humans and other animals sharing the same planet and the same environmental challenges, infections and infectious agents as well as other aspects of physical—and possibly mental—health. However, we would like to illuminate the differences between these three concepts or approaches, and how the choice of terms may, deliberately or involuntary, signal the focus, and underlying values of the approaches.
A Rapid Review of Evidence on Managing the Risk of Disease Emergence in Wildlife Trade
This synthesis integrates the lessons learned from each of the report’s chapters and highlights their implications for planning an OIE program on the wildlife trade and emerging infectious diseases. Each chapter includes an executive summary which supports this synthesis.
One Health and the Environment: From Conceptual Framework to Implementation Science
The insignia of several agencies dedicated to health and healing depict an animal, a snake, coiled around a potent staff. Various interpretations have been offered to explain the symbolic meaning of the Rod of Asclepius, but its representation of intertwined human health and animal health suggests a long history of relatively recent attempts, including the One Health framework, to define human health in the context of interconnectedness with other organisms.
Live and Wet Markets: Food Access versus the Risk of Disease Emergence
Emerging zoonotic diseases exert a significant burden on human health and have considerable socioeconomic impact worldwide. In Asia, live animals as well as animal products are commonly sold in informal markets. The interaction of humans, live domestic animals for sale, food products, and wild and scavenging animals, creates a risk for emerging infectious diseases. Such markets have been in the spotlight as sources of zoonotic viruses, for example, avian influenza viruses and coronaviruses, Here, we bring data together on the global impact of live and wet markets on the emergence of zoonotic diseases. We discuss how benefits can be maximized and risks minimized and conclude that current regulations should be implemented or revised, to mitigate the risk of new diseases emerging in the future.
How to Start Up a National Wildlife Health Surveillance Programme
A sound understanding of wildlife health is required to inform disease management and mitigation measures in order to help safeguard public, livestock, companion animal and wildlife health.
Ranking the Risk of Animal-to-Human Spillover for Newly Discovered Viruses
The death toll and economic loss resulting from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic are stark reminders that we are vulnerable to zoonotic viral threats. Strategies are needed to identify and characterize animal viruses that pose the greatest risk of spillover and spread in humans and inform public health interventions. Using expert opinion and scientific evidence, we identified host, viral, and environmental risk factors contributing to zoonotic virus spillover and spread in humans. We then developed a risk ranking framework and interactive web tool, SpillOver, that estimates a risk score for wildlife-origin viruses, creating a comparative risk assessment of viruses with uncharacterized zoonotic spillover potential alongside those already known to be zoonotic.
One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026): Working Together for the Health of Humans, Animals, Plants and the Environment
The One Health Joint Plan of Action outlines the commitment of the four organizations – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE), and the World Health Organization (WHO) – to collectively advocate and support the implementation of One Health. It builds on to existing global and regional One Health and coordination initiatives aimed at strengthening health systems at global, regional, and national level.
Effectiveness of Front Line and Emerging Fungal Disease Prevention and Control Interventions and Opportunities to Address Appropriate Eco-Sustainable Solutions
Fungal infections represent an under recognized threat to public health and antifungal resistance is increasing globally. New alternative eco-solutions to address pathogenic fungi are needed, particularly in order to address fungi with increasing drug resistance where research and innovation can be enabled using a One Health approach.
One Health for All: Advancing Human and Ecosystem Health in Cities by Integrating an Environmental Justice Lens
The One Health concept provides an organizing framework that promotes the health and well-being of urban communities and ecosystems. However, for One Health to be successful, it must incorporate societal inequities in environmental disamenities, exposures, and policy. This is a review of the current literature on One Health perspectives, pinpoints areas in which to incorporate an environmental justice lens, and closes with recommendations for future work.
The Association Between Dengue Case and Climate: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Although previous research frequently indicates that climate factors impact dengue transmission, the results are inconsistent. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis highlights and address the complex global health problems towards the human-environment interface and the inter-relationship between these variables.
Research and Innovation Opportunities to Improve Epidemiological Knowledge and Control of Environmentally Driven Zoonoses
While zoonotic diseases are defined by transmission processes between animals and humans, for many of these diseases the presence of a contaminated environmental source is the cause of transmission. Environmentally driven zoonoses (EDZs) are particularly challenging to diagnose and control as their reservoirs are in the natural environment and thus often escape conventional surveillance systems that rely on host monitoring. This review discusses the main challenges relating to the epidemiology, diagnosis, and control of EDZs.
One Health High-Level Expert Panel: One Health Theory of Change
The OHHLEP, established in May 2021, provides an advisory function to the Quadripartite organizations – FAO, UNEP, WHO and WOAH – to support their provision of evidence-based scientific and policy advice and technical support on One Health-related matters to their members. OHHLEP has developed an over-arching Theory of Change, designed to guide OHHLEP’s own work and that of the Quadripartite as well as providing a conceptual framework for other organizations, agencies, and initiatives working towards similar One Health goals.
Synthesis Report on the Environmental and Health Impacts of Pesticides and Fertilizers and Ways to Minimize Them
This report presents a comprehensive review of available information on environmental and health effects impacts of pesticides and fertilizers, and provides actions to be taken by stakeholders to minimize the adverse impacts.
Helping to Heal Nature and Ourselves Through Human-Rights-Based and Gender-Responsive One Health
The health of our planet and humanity is threatened by biodiversity loss, disease, and climate crises. The One Health approach is a pathway to addressing outcomes in term of health and sustainability, but gender issues are largely ignored. By examining the roles and responsibilities of Indigenous and Local People, and especially women, in conserving natural resources, the study shows that women bear a disproportionate health, poverty, and climate burden.
Climate Change Impacts on Plant Pathogens, Food Security, and Paths Forward
Plant disease outbreaks pose significant risks to global food security and environmental sustainability worldwide, and result in the loss of primary productivity and biodiversity that negatively impact the environmental and socio-economic conditions of affected regions. Climate change further increases outbreak risks by altering pathogen evolution and host–pathogen interactions and facilitating the emergence of new pathogenic strains.
Environmental Variation Across Multiple Spatial Scales and Temporal Lags Influences Hendra Virus Spillover
Pathogens can spill over and infect new host species by overcoming a series of ecological and biological barriers. Hendra virus circulates in Australian flying foxes and provides a data-rich study system for identifying environmental drivers underlying spillover events.
A Better Classification of Wet Markets is Key to Safeguarding Human Health and Biodiversity
Wet markets have been implicated in multiple zoonotic outbreaks, including COVID-19. They are also a conduit for legal and illegal trade in wildlife, which threatens thousands of species. Yet wet markets supply food to millions of people around the world, and differ drastically in their physical composition, the goods they sell, and the subsequent risks they pose. As such, policy makers need to know how to target their actions to efficiently safeguard human health and biodiversity without depriving people of ready access to food.
Intersectoral collaboration shaping One Health in the policy agenda_Ghana and India.pdf
Intersectoral collaborations are an integral component of the prevention and control of diseases in a complex health system. On the one hand, One Health (OH) is promoting the establishment of intersectoral collaborations for prevention at the human-animal-environment interface. On the other hand, operationalising OH can only be realized through intersectoral collaborations.
Opportunities for Transdisciplinary Science to Mitigate Biosecurity Risks from the Intersectionality of Illegal Wildlife Trade with Emerging Zoonotic Pathogens
Existing collaborations among public health practitioners, veterinarians, and ecologists do not sufficiently consider illegal wildlife trade in their surveillance, biosafety, and security (SB&S) efforts even though the risks to health and biodiversity from these threats are significant. We highlight multiple cases to illustrate the risks posed by existing gaps in understanding the intersectionality of the illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic disease transmission. We argue for more integrative science in support of decision-making using the One Health approach. Opportunities abound to apply transdisciplinary science to sustainable wildlife trade policy and programming, such as combining on-the-ground monitoring of health, environmental, and social conditions with an understanding of the operational and spatial dynamics of illicit wildlife trade.
Ecological Interventions to Prevent and Manage Zoonotic Pathogen Spillover
Spillover of a pathogen from a wildlife reservoir into a human or livestock host requires the pathogen to overcome a hierarchical series of barriers. Interventions aimed at one or more of these barriers may be able to prevent the occurrence of spillover. Here, we demonstrate how interventions that target the ecological context in which spillover occurs (i.e. ecological interventions) can complement conventional approaches like vaccination, treatment, disinfec- tion and chemical control. Accelerating spillover owing to environmental change requires effective, affordable, durable and scalable solutions that fully harness the complex processes involved in cross-species pathogen spillover.
Global Shifts in Mammalian Population Trends Reveal Key Predictors of Virus Spillover Risk
Emerging infectious diseases in humans are frequently caused by pathogens originating from animal hosts, and zoonotic disease outbreaks present a major challenge to global health. To investigate drivers of virus spillover, we evaluated the number of viruses mammalian species have shared with humans. We discovered that the number of zoonotic viruses detected in mammalian species scales positively with global species abundance, suggesting that virus transmission risk has been highest from animal species that have increased in abundance and even expanded their range by adapting to human-dominated landscapes. Domesticated species, primates, and bats were identified as having more zoonotic viruses than other species. Among threatened wildlife species, those with population reductions owing to exploitation and loss of habitat shared more viruses with humans. The exploitation of wildlife through hunting and trade facilitates close contact between wildlife and humans, and our findings provide further evidence that exploitation, as well as anthropogenic activities that have caused losses in wildlife habitat quality, have increased opportunities for animal-human interactions and facilitated zoonotic disease transmission. Our study provides new evidence for assessing spillover risk from mammalian species and highlights convergent processes whereby the causes of wildlife population declines have facilitated the transmission of animal viruses to humans.
Drivers of Antibiotic Resistance Transmission in Low-and Middle-Income Countries from a One Health Perspective - A Review
Antibiotic resistance is an ecosystem problem threatening the interrelated human-animal-environment health under the “One Health” framework. Resistant bacteria arising in one geographical area can spread via cross-reservoir transmission to other areas worldwide either by direct exposure or through the food chain and the environment. Drivers of antibiotic resistance are complex and multi-sectoral, particularly in Lower- and Middle-income countries. These include inappropriate socio-ecological behaviors; poverty; overcrowding; lack of surveillance systems; food supply chain safety issues; highly contaminated waste effluents; and loose rules and regulations.
Immediate Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Use of Wildlife as Food Among Indigenous People and Local Communities in South America
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a range of effects on the environment and particularly on wildlife, through diverse and sometimes contradictory impact pathways. Based on data collected among indigenous people and local communities from South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, and Peru), this study investigates changes in the use of wildlife resources for food during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One Welfare Impacts of COVID-19 - A Summary of Key Highlights within the One Welfare Framework
One Welfare describes the interconnection between animal welfare, human wellbeing and their physical and social environment. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the cause of COVID-19 and emerged as a human pathogen in 2019 although is thought to have a zoonotic source. The original wildlife reservoir and any potential intermediate hosts have not yet been identified. The combination of the virus zoonotic condition together with the impacts of disease control measures has exposed clear interconnections between animals, people and their environment from both a health and a welfare perspective.
The Security Threat that Binds Us: The Unraveling of Ecological and Natural Security and What the United States Can Do About It
Global ecological disruption is arguably the 21st Century’s most underappreciated security threat. Human societies are producing rapid, novel, and foundational changes across multiple Earth systems with concomitant—and sometimes severe—consequences for people, societies, and security worldwide. These changes are significant and globally consequential, and include the transformation of the atmosphere’s composition, overloaded and depleted soils, toxified and acidified oceans, and reconfigured freshwater systems.
Situation Analysis: COVID-19, Wildlife Trade, and Consumer Engagement
Despite evidence still being unclear as to the origins of the virus, people’s relationship with and consumption of wild animals such as pangolins has been irreversibly cast into sharp relief. Even if COVID-19 proves not to have originated from wild animals in trade, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought global attention to the growing number of wildlife-linked diseases emerging as major human health concerns - ranging from HIV to SARS, MERS, H1N1 (swine flu), H5N1 (avian flu) and Ebola. For many of these, there are strong indications of disease transmission links to wild animal trade.
The Impact of Climate Change on Health: Reducing Risks and Increasing Resilience in the Era of COVID-19
The climate crisis has many consequences – among them widespread health impacts that will lead to immense societal, ecological, and economic harm. Over the past two decades multiple large-scale reviews on climate change and health have made clear the need for a multi-sectoral approach to target the drivers and impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. Despite this abundance of scientific evidence underscoring urgency of action, policy implementation responses lag behind. Even at COP26, itself delayed due to an ongoing pandemic, health continues to be considered by many countries a problem independent from climate and environment.
A Global Deal for our Pandemic Age: Report of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
The High Level Independent Panel was asked by the G20 in January 2021 to propose how finance can be organized, systematically and sustainably, to reduce the world’s vulnerability to future pandemics.
The Berlin Principles on One Health - Bridging Global Health and Conservation
For over 15-years, proponents of the One Health approach have worked to consistently interweave components that should never have been separated and now more than ever need to be re-connected: the health of humans, non-human animals, and ecosystems. We have failed to heed the warning signs. A One Health approach is paramount in directing our future health in this acutely and irrevocably changed world. COVID-19 has shown us the exorbitant cost of inaction. The time to act is now.
Reducing Public Health Risks Associated with the Sale of Live Wild Animals of Mammalian Species in Traditional Food Markets
Traditional food markets, rather than supermarkets, are the norm in many parts of the world. Such markets form part of the social fabric of communities and are the main source of affordable fresh foods for many low-income groups and an important source of livelihood for millions of urban and rural dwellers worldwide. Traditional food markets that are regulated by national or local competent authorities and that operate to high standards of hygiene and sanitation are safe for workers and customers.
Biodiversity and the Economic Response to COVID-19: Ensuring a Green and Resilient Recovery
This Policy Brief focuses on the vital role of biodiversity for human life and the importance of integrating biodiversity considerations into the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The Brief first outlines how biodiversity loss is a key driver of emerging infectious diseases and poses a variety of other growing risks to businesses, society and the global economy. Investing in the conservation, sustainable use and restoration of biodiversity can help to address these risks, while providing jobs, business opportunities and other benefits to society.
Global Governance for Pandemic Prevention and the Wildlife Trade
Although ideas about preventive actions for pandemics have been advanced during the COVID-19 crisis, there has been little consideration for how they can be operationalized through governance structures within the context of the wildlife trade for human consumption. This resource considers the current institutional landscape for pandemic prevention in light of ongoing negotiations of a so-called pandemic treaty and how prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption could be incorporated.
The Most At-Risk Regions in the World for High-Impact Heatwaves
Heatwaves are becoming more frequent under climate change and can lead to thousands of excess deaths. Adaptation to extreme weather events often occurs in response to an event, with communities learning fast following unexpectedly impactful events. Using extreme value statistics, here we show where regional temperature records are statistically likely to be exceeded, and therefore communities might be more at-risk.
Mainstreaming Zoonotic Spillover Prevention at Source in National Action Planning for Health Security in Line with the Core Focus of One Health
Excessive human-animal interactions are driven by ecosystem degradation. Sustainable and safe wildlife and biodiversity management have become priority global concerns, where the One Health approach is the ultimate solution.
Academic Health Institutions’ Declaration on Planetary Health
This Declaration endorses the definition of planetary health as defined by the Planetary Health Alliance: Planetary health is a solutions-oriented, transdisciplinary field and social movement focused on analyzing and addressing the impacts of human disruptions to Earth’s natural systems on human health and all life on Earth. Academic health institutions declare the health of the planet a Code Red emergency.
Veterinary Intelligence: Integrating Zoonotic Threats into Global Health Security
Zoonotic diseases are leading threats to public health globally. The recent G7 meeting of world leaders made strong political commitments to strengthening One Health approaches at the human–animal interface as an integral element of the global health security architecture. Repeated epidemics and pandemics from Ebola to COVID-19 have demonstrated the systematic disregard of zoonotic disease within what still remains a predominantly human-centric public health approach. In particular, commitments to the expansion of pathogen surveillance and health intelligence require the development of novel approaches to improve and strengthen our domestic capabilities for species neutral monitoring, which requires the sustained involvement of veterinary colleagues.
Rice-Animal Co-Culture Systems Benefit Global Sustainable Intensification
Through a global consensus by synthesizing evidence from existing literature, this study found that rice-animal co-culture systems could produce more diverse food types and nutrient sources, enhance resource use efficiency and reduce methane emissions, while increasing farmers' income. Global promotion of rice-animal co-culture system has the potential to benefit sustainable development goals.
Protecting Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Territories Reduces Atmospheric Particulates and Avoids Associated Health Impacts and Costs
Indigenous territories are important for conservation, but little is known about their role in maintaining human health. This research quantified the potential human health and economic benefits of protecting these territories in the Brazilian Amazon, by using cardiovascular and respiratory diseases cases, pollutant, and forest cover data.
Insects as Feed for Livestock Production
This review explains how the use of insects as livestock feed can improve sustainability of livestock production because insects can transform low value organic wastes into high quality feed.
Medicinal Plants Against Antimicrobial Resistance
The causes of antimicrobial resistance are complex. This paper aims to describe certain health-seeking behaviors that lead to the threat of antimicrobial resistance and explores the use of plant-based antimicrobial as preventive agents.
Seaweed’s Contribution to Food Security in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Benefits from Production, Processing, and Trade
This paper explores the potential of seaweed to address food insecurity and poor nutrition, alongside its potential to mitigate the carbon footprint of food systems globally.
What Climate-Smart Agriculture Means for Smallholder Farmers
Smallholder farmers generate an estimated 32 percent of global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and are one of the populations most at risk from climate change. Our analysis shows that in three countries—India, Ethiopia, and Mexico—nearly 80 percent of all smallholder farmers could be affected by at least one climate hazard by 2050.
Human Disturbance Increases Coronavirus Prevalence in Bats
Human land modification is a known driver of animal-to-human transmission of infectious agents (zoonotic spillover). Infection prevalence in the reservoir is a key predictor of spillover, but landscape-level associations between the intensity of land modification and infection rates in wildlife remain largely untested. This research links land modification data with bat coronavirus surveillance records and show that coronavirus prevalence significantly increases with the intensity of human impact across all climates and levels of background biodiversity.
Improving the Assessment of Ecosystem and Wildlife Health: Microbiome as an Early Indicator
Human activities are causing dramatic declines in ecosystem health, compromising the functioning of the life-support system, economic activity, and animal and human health. Monitoring the health of ecosystems and wildlife populations is crucial for determining ecological dynamics and assessing management interventions. A growing body of evidence indicates that microbiome provides a meaningful early indicator of ecosystem and wildlife health.
Evolution and Expansion of the One Health Approach to Promote Sustainable and Resilient Health and Well-being: A Call to Action
To ensure the One Health approach can function effectively within the new global context of converging health, economic, and ecological crises, it must evolve and expand.
Financial Incentives Often Fail to Reconcile Agricultural Productivity and Pro-Conservation Behavior
Paying resource users to preserve features of their environment could in theory better align production and conservation goals. However, they often do not due to a range of conservation dilemmas. This research discusses how the design of incentive programs can better align livelihood and environment goals.
Reducing Pandemic Risks at Source: Wildlife, Environment, and One Health Foundations in East and South Asia
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are infections associated with new or significantly-expanded geographic scope or spread of zoonotic, vector-borne, and drug-resistant pathogens. This report outlines the risks of EIDs from wildlife and provides guidance in building systems to reduce emerging pandemic threats at their source in East and South Asia.
From Reacting to Preventing Pandemics - Building Animal Health and Wildlife Systems for One Health in East Asia and Pacific
The reduction of pandemic risk is a quintessential global public good and risk management that requires whole-of-society to respond to the pandemics at the country, regional, and global levels. This joint World Bank-FAO report analyzes the drivers of zoonotic and emerging infectious diseases (EID) and offers strategic recommendations for preventing their spread in animals and humans using a cross-sectoral approach.
Operational Framework for Strengthening Human, Animal, and Environmental Public Health Systems at their Interface
Public health systems are impacted by, and must respond to, significant threats at the human-animal-environment interface. This Operational Framework provides a practical reference toward achieving the aim of resilient public health systems.
The Role of Social Vulnerability in Improving Interventions for Neglected Zoonotic Diseases: The Example of Kyasanur Forest Disease in India
Forest-based communities manage many risks to health and socio-economic welfare including the increasing threat of emerging zoonoses. Drawing on a survey of 229 households and a interviews in the Western Ghats, this research examines the factors affecting vulnerability of smallholder and tribal households to Kyasanur Forest Disease, an often-fatal tick-borne viral hemorrhagic fever endemic in south India.
Mitigating Zoonotic Disease Threats to Prevent Future Pandemics: A Critical Analysis of Policy Favoring the Closures of Wildlife Markets in Latin America
This report challenges the efficacy of wildlife market closure policy by considering cultural, socioeconomic, and legal factors for the existence of wildlife market within megadiverse countries in Latin America.
Synergising Tools for Capacity Assessment and One Health Operationalisation
Multisectoral, One Health collaboration is essential for addressing national and international health threats that arise at the human–animal–environment interface. This paper presents a consensus framework on how commonly implemented One Health tools might align to best support countries in strengthening One Health systems.
Effects of Climate-Related Risks and Extreme Events on Health Outcomes and Health Utilization of Primary Care in Rural and Remote Areas: A Scoping Review
Rural populations are at risk of climate-related impacts due to ecological and geographical determinants, potentially leading to greater morbidity and health utilization. This review aimed to identify, characterize, and summarize existing research on the effects of climate-related events on health outcomes of primary care in rural and remote areas.
The Deep Prevention of Future Pandemics Through a One Health Approach: What Role For a Pandemic Instrument?
More than half of all known human pathogens have animal origin and a key question that has arisen in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis is: how can the risk of future pandemics emerging from the animal-human-ecosystems interface be reduced? This policy brief seeks to advance thinking and debate on this question by offering analysis on how a Pandemic Instrument could incorporate the One Health approaches to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
One Health Systems Strengthening in Countries: Tripartite Tools and Approaches at the Human-Animal-Environment Interface
Unexpected pathogen transmission between animals, humans and their shared environments can impact all aspects of society. The Tripartite organisations—the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)—have been collaborating for over two decades. The inclusion of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) with the Tripartite, forming the ‘Quadripartite’ in 2021, creates a new and important avenue to engage environment sectors in the development of additional tools and resources for One Health coordination and improved health security globally.
Prevention of Zoonotic Spillover: From Relying on Response to Reducing the Risk at Source
This review suggests that reducing zoonotic spillover risk at the source is economically beneficial.
World Forests, Global Change, and Emerging Pests and Pathogens
Global changes play an important role in altering patterns of human, animal, and plant host–pathogen interactions and invasive pest species. This review highlights that the subject of pathogens and plant pests lacks work on macroecology and biogeography.
Implementing Human Health as a Landscape Service in Collaborative Landscape Approaches
Landscape services have been found to foster collaboration among actors in social-ecological transitions towards a more sustainable landscape. This essay proposes that the contribution of landscape to human health could be particularly effective to play such a role.
Sector Environmental Guideline: Livestock Production
The purpose of this document and the Sector Environmental Guidelines overall is to support environmentally sound design and management of USAID development activities by providing concise, plain-language information about the potential for beneficial impacts from well-managed livestock systems, the typical adverse environmental impacts of activities in the sector, how to prevent or otherwise mitigate adverse impacts, and how to minimize vulnerability of activities to climate change.
Systems Thinking and Practice: A Guide to Concepts, Principles, and Tools for FCDO and Partners
This guide offers an insight into the theoretical foundations, conceptual frameworks, and facilitation tools for adopting a systems mindset and putting it into practice.
Harnessing Soil Biodiversity to Promote Human Health in Cities
This research stresses that reductions in urban soil biodiversity elevate risks to human health, but soil biodiversity can improve human health through pathways including suppressing pathogens, remediating soil, shaping a beneficial human microbiome and promoting immune fitness.
Biodiversity Data Supports Research on Human Infectious Diseases: Global Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
Research on emerging infectious diseases may require the access to geographical and ecological data of multiple species. The One Health challenge requires interdisciplinary collaboration and data sharing. The contribution of biodiversity data to understand infectious disease dynamics should be acknowledged, strengthened, and promoted.
Transformative Learning for a Sustainable and Healthy Future Through Ecosystem Approaches to Health
This paper presents insights from the work of the Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health (CoPEH-Canada) and 15 years (2008–2022) of land-based, transdisciplinary, learner-centered, transformative learning and training.
Global Trends in Antimicrobial Use in Food-Producing Animals: 2020 to 2030
Use of antimicrobials in farming has enabled the growth of intensive animal production and helped in meeting the global increase in demand for animal protein. However, the widespread use of veterinary antimicrobials drives antimicrobial resistance, with important consequences for animal health, and potentially human health. National level reporting of antimicrobial use should be encouraged to better evaluate the impact of national policies on antimicrobial use levels.
Facilitating Implementation of the One Health Approach: A Definition of a One Health Intervention
To provide evidence of the impact of implementing the One Health approach and to assess the process outputs, a definition of a One Health intervention is required. We are proposing a definition and characteristics of a One Health intervention which will complement the operational definition of the One Health approach by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel.
Recommendations and Technical Specifications for Sustainable Surveillance of Zoonotic Pathogens Where Wildlife is Implicated
A science-based participatory process guided by EFSA identified 10 priority zoonotic pathogens for future One Health surveillance in Europe. The main aim of this report is to formulate recommendations and technical specifications for sustainable coordinated surveillance for early detection of these zoonotic pathogens where wildlife is implicated.
Advancing One Health: Updated Core Competencies
In this paper, a review of past and currently accepted One Health core competencies was conducted, with competence gaps identified. The Network for Ecohealth and One Health proposed updated core competencies designed to simplify what can be a complex area.
Pollinator Deficits, Food Consumption, and Consequences for Human Health: A Modeling Study
Animal pollination supports agricultural production for many healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, that provide key nutrients and protect against noncommunicable disease. This study showed that populations of pollinators were responsible for large burdens of disease through lost healthy food consumption and that low-income countries lost significant income and crop yields from pollinator deficits.
WildHealthNet: Supporting the Development of Sustainable Wildlife Health Surveillance Networks in Southeast Asia
Wildlife and wildlife interfaces with people and livestock are essential surveillance targets to monitor emergent or endemic pathogens or new threats affecting wildlife, livestock, and human health. However, limitations of previous investments in scope and duration have resulted in a neglect of wildlife health surveillance systems at national and global scales, particularly in lower and middle income countries.
One Health 4: Global and Regional Governance of One Health and Implications for Global Health Security
The apparent failure of global health security to prevent or prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for closer cooperation between human, animal, and environmental health sectors. This paper focuses on the four challenges to the global governance for One Health: silos among disciplines and professions; weaknesses in the interfaces of global health public goods and the international legal system; asymmetrical power dynamics, regionally and globally; and flaws in crisis-driven financing.
One Health 3: How Prepared is the World? Identifying Weaknesses in Existing Assessment Frameworks for Global Health Security Through a One Health Approach
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed faults in the way we assess preparedness and response capacities for public health emergencies. This research critically reviews the global assessments used for measuring a multisectoral approach to preparedness for global public health emergencies.
One Health 2: A Global Analysis of One Health Networks and the Proliferation of One Health Collaborations
There has been a renewed focus on threats to the human–animal–environment interface as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and investments in One Health collaborations are expected to increase. This Series paper shows the global distribution of existing One Health Networks (OHNs) and assesses their collective characteristics to identify potential deficits in the ways OHNs have formed and to help increase the effectiveness of investments.
Re-Imagining One Health: A Perspective From Social Science
As human decisions and actions are the locus of One Health challenges, it is critical to understand how people perceive and act on these connections. This essay presents contributions of social science to our understanding of One Health.
Gender Analysis for One Health: Theoretical Perspectives and Recommendations for Practice
This paper outlines the consultative workshop, ‘‘Women and One Health,’’ and highlights outcomes toward shared terminology and integration of frameworks from one health, gender analysis, and women in agriculture. Further, recommendations for education, policy, and service delivery at the intersection of women’s empowerment and one health are offered as important efforts toward the dual goals of gender equality and sustainable health of humans, animals, and their shared ecosystems.
Social-ecological System Health in Transfrontier Conservation Areas to Promote the Coexistence Between People and Nature
The ProSuLi in Transfrontier Conservation Areas in southern Africa project engaged with four communities in three countries (Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe) to identify, co-design, implement, and monitor livelihoods interventions that could improve well-being.
Operationalizing the Environment Health Nexus in Asia and the Pacific: A Policy Guide on Opportunities for Enhancing Health, Biodiversity, Food System and Climate Action
This policy guide aims to support policymakers and stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region to address environment-health risks and safeguard human health and well-being while protecting ecosystems. Specifically, it provides an overview of concrete opportunities to mainstream the environment-health nexus in public policies in Asia and the Pacific.
The Determinants of Planetary Health: An Indigenous Consensus Perspective
A group of Indigenous scholars, practitioners, land and water defenders, respected Elders, and knowledge-holders came together to define the determinants of planetary health from an Indigenous perspective. Three overarching levels of interconnected determinants, in addition to ten individual-level determinants, were identified as being integral to the health and sustainability of the planet.
Gender Gap Reduction and the One Health Benefits
This paper proposes an ecological approach to find relationships between quantitative indicators of the gender gap dimension, the environmental performance index and the life expectancy at birth as summary of human health index in 155 countries.
On the Possibility of Decolonising Planetary Health: Exploring New Geographies for Collaboration
This Viewpoint explores research in planetary health across holistic worldviews and western scientific approaches, based our examination of decolonising interventions in planetary health by exploring how global trajectories play out in British Columbia, Canada. A central part of this analysis is highlighting intercultural thinking to promote an anti-colonial, anti-racist, and reciprocal approach to climate change and global health inequities across geographical space and within planetary health discourse.
Challenges and Successes of One Health in the Context of Planetary Health in Latin America and the Caribbean
Latin America faces significant challenges in the last decades due to the deep social inequality associated with environmental degradation and biodiversity loss that menace the integral health of the diverse socio-ecological systems. Planetary health is crucial in Latin America and the Caribbean countries, and integrated health approaches are pivotal to mitigating climate change and should be considered as a scope of multidisciplinary collaboration under the umbrella of One Health.
Wet Market Biosecurity Reform: Three Social Narratives Influence Stakeholder Responses in Vietnam, Kenya, and the Philippines
In 2020, Covid-19 led to global policy statements promoting bans and reforms to wet markets in Asia and Africa to prevent future pandemics. This report describes a comparative, exploratory qualitative study in 2021 in three countries (Kenya, Vietnam and the Philippines) to understand the social and political dimensions to biosecurity reform at wet markets. This included 60 key informant interviews and rapid ethnographic research in 15 markets, as well as a review of policy documents and online media articles.
WHO Guidance for Climate-resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities
The aim of this guidance is to enhance the capacity of health care facilities to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and to empower health care facilities to be environmentally sustainable, by optimizing the use of resources and minimizing the release of waste into the environment. Climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services, and by helping reduce facility costs also ensure better affordability.
The Case for Investing in Animal Health to Support One Health
The Action for Animal Health coalition advocates for five pillars of action to secure animal health and welfare. This report outlines the current state of these five pillars of animal health systems in low-and middle-income countries, with a particular focus on Ethiopia and Pakistan. It sets out the case for why we need to pay closer attention to the health of the animals we depend on to implement One Health and for sustainable development.
Characterizing the One Health Workforce to Promote Interdisciplinary, Multisectoral Approaches in Global Health Problem-solving
The objectives of this formative study were to build foundational knowledge of the One Health workforce regarding demographics, education, and employment, as well as to explore the benefits of One Health education to the workforce, the unique challenges that One Health workers face, and whether employers are satisfied with their employees working in One Health.
Operationalizing One Health in Pastoralist Settings Module 1: Principles and Applications of One Health
This facilitator guide is intended to help trainers deliver Module 1: Principles and Applications of One Health of the HEAL training package. The Unit aims to develop the capacity of learners with respect to the core knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to practice a One Health approach to address animal, human and environmental health challenges in pastoralist settings in Africa. The Module has both theoretical and practical sessions.
The Use of Environmental Scenarios to Project Future Health Effects: A Scoping Review
Environmental risks are a substantial factor in the current burden of disease, and their role is likely to increase in the future. In this Review, we examine the literature on scenarios modelling environmental effects on health to identify the most relevant findings, common methods used, and important research gaps.
The values and risks of an Intergovernmental Panel for One Health to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need for better global governance of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response and has emphasized the importance of organized knowledge production and uptake. In this Health Policy, we assess the potential values and risks of establishing an Intergovernmental Panel for One Health.
Co-benefits of Marine Protected Areas for Nature and People
This research uses a statistical matching approach to examine whether marine protected areas are associated with co-benefits or trade-offs between reef fish abundances and measures of human well-being, including income, diet and food security in the Mesoamerican region.
A Planetary Health Innovation for Disease, Food and Water Challenges in Africa
Many communities in low- and middle-income countries globally lack sustainable, cost-effective and mutually beneficial solutions for infectious disease, food, water, and poverty challenges. This research supports the hypothesis that agricultural development and fertilizer use in West Africa increases the burden of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis by fueling the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation that chokes out water access points and serves as habitat for freshwater snails that transmit Schistosoma parasites to more than 200 million people globally.
Organising for One Health in a Developing Country
Globally, zoonotic diseases pose an enormous and growing public health challenge, and developing countries are at the epicenter of it. The paper analyses the success and failures associated with the way in which India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Rwanda have organized for One Health. It also studies the underlying pathways through which zoonotic spillovers take place, and epidemics gather momentum.
Association Between Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Clinical Antibiotic Resistance: A Global Analysis
This analysis is the first to describe the association between PM2·5 and clinical antibiotic resistance globally. Results provide new pathways for antibiotic-resistance control from an environmental perspective.
Evaluation of a Global Training Program in One Health communication
A global Train-the-Trainer Program, focused on improving the communication techniques of One Health advocates, is assessed and evaluated in this study. The Program significantly improved the trainee’s confidence in communicating science and teaching novice audiences about One Health.
Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance by Integrating One Health and the Sustainable Development Goals
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been identified as a leading threat to global public health. One Health approaches that integrate sectors across human health, animal health, food production and the environment are essential to both addressing the growing threat of AMR and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence From The Decline of Vultures in India
Scientific evidence suggests the Earth is undergoing a mass extinction of species, caused by human activity. Evaluating the social costs of losing non-human species is necessary to manage biodiversity and target conservation resources. We show that the functional extinction of vultures in India increased human mortality because of a negative shock to sanitation.
Does Land‑use and Land Cover Affect Vector‑borne Diseases? A Systematic Review and Meta‑analysis
To evaluate the impact of land-use and land-cover (LULC) on the transmission of VBDs, we conducted a systematic review of the existing literature on the global effects of land use on VBDs. The systematic literature review revealed a temporal increase in publications on this topic, with a significant rise since 2007 and uneven distribution of data across countries, with the United States, Spain, and Brazil being the most prominent contributors and identified a wide range of pathogens and hosts involved in VBD systems, with human and avian malaria being the most commonly mentioned diseases.
Stratifying the Urban Matrix Using Zoning Laws: A Protocol for Bats and Their Pathogens
Urbanization implies important ecological changes in bat communities and in their intra and interspecific pathogen transmission. However, little is known about the influences of the urban components on the ecology and structuring of these communities. We used urban zoning to develop a sample design for an eco-epidemiological study of bats in São Paulo, the biggest Metropolitan Area of Brazil.
One Health: We’re All Connected!
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created this coloring book to offer parents, guardians, and educators an interactive way to talk to kids about how the health of people, animals, and the environment is all connected—known as One Health.
Indigenous Determinants of Health: A Unified Call for Progress
Globally, substantial challenges remain for Indigenous Peoples. The wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples is an explicit determinant of planetary health.
Guidance to Facilitate Monitoring and Evaluation for Antimicrobial Resistance National Action Plans
The aim of the the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is to ensure the continuity of successful treatment with effective and safe medicines. This guidance document was developed as a reference for countries to support the development and delivery of AMR national action plans.
How Crop-livestock Clinics Are Advancing One Health: A Pilot Case from Uganda
This case narrates the early experiences with crop–livestock clinics – a novel, integrated advisory service for smallholder farmers, which is based on existing government extension structures and capacities. The pilot work is carried out by a transdisciplinary team exploring clinic operations and possible synergies and efficiency gains in four districts in central Uganda.
One Health in Turkana County, Kenya: Applications and Lessons Learned
This case describes the development of the One Health Strategy in Turkana County, Kenya. Turkana can act as a model for implementing One Health to improve the health and livelihoods of pastoralists in the drylands of Northern Kenya and neighboring pastoral regions.
Zoonotic and Environmental Disease Risk Assessment Tool
This mnemonic device provides a matrix of questions to assess animal and environment disease risk. HEALTH stands for Human, Environment, Animal, Location, Travel and Habits.
Healthy Soil for Healthy Humans and a Healthy Planet
This review argues that a healthy soil is multifunctional and is capable of supporting human and planetary health. A broad framework is provided for quantifying soil health, with such an approach enabling a shift in the way we think about, plan, and manage systems to ensure ongoing planetary and human health.
Mapping Potential Conflicts Between Global Agriculture and Terrestrial Conservation
Demand for food products, often from international trade, has brought agricultural land use into direct competition with biodiversity. This study provides a quantitative basis to better understand and manage the large-scale transformative changes between humanity and nature through decisions concerning food consumption, production, and trade.
Coastal Urbanization Influences Human Pathogens and Microdebris Contamination in Seafood
Seafood is one of the leading imported products implicated in foodborne outbreaks worldwide. Coastal marine environments are being increasingly subjected to reduced water quality from urbanization and leading to contamination of important fishery species. To illustrate the potential health risks associated with urbanization in a coastal environment, this research studied a vast range of potential human bacterial pathogens and microdebris contaminants in seawater, sediment and an important oyster fishery along the Mergui Archipelago in Myanmar.
Progressive Management Pathway for Terrestrial Animal Biosecurity
FAO has pioneered the progressive management pathway (PMP) approach to assist countries, industries, and producers to gradually implement improved and sustainable levels of risk management. Now, a PMP for terrestrial animal biosecurity is being developed to strengthen biosecurity in terrestrial animal production and associated value chains.
Rights and Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and Planetary Health
This Planetary Health Alliance (PHA) Policy Note aims to elevate the views expressed by Indigenous leaders in the 2023 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and call attention to how Planetary Health work can align with UNPFII.
The Right to a Healthy Environment: Reconceptualizing Human Rights in the Face of Climate Change
There is hardly any doubt that climate change threatens the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. Yet, in the absence of a distinct right to a healthy environment, a victim of climate change impacts would have to rely on existing rights to bring a claim. However, not only are these avenues not always successful or even sufficient to effectively and adequately compensate the victims, but they appear especially problematic in the context of climate change. This article explores the implications of the recognition of a stand-alone substantive right to a healthy environment in the context of climate change. In doing so, it argues that such a recognition could trigger a paradigm shift that would facilitate the reconceptualization of human rights law to better adapt to the negative impacts of climate change, in particular by incorporating key environmental law principles in the human rights system.
Opportunities and Challenges of Bio‐based Fertilizers Utilization for Improving Soil Health
Bio-based fertilizers (BBFs) have been promoted as a solution to help manage bio-waste problems and improve soil health conditions. This study found that contamination of heavy metals and pathogens is the main problem of BBFs implementation. Furthermore, compared to mineral fertilizers, BBFs have obstacles to getting social acceptance due to the challenges of transportation and production cost, the concentration of nutrients, matching crops, and policy framework.
Improving the Ecological and Economic Performance of Agri-environment Schemes: Payment by Modelled Results Versus Payment for Actions
Researchers and policy-makers have become increasingly interested in re-designing agri-environmental policy to improve both economic efficiency and ecological effectiveness. One idea within this debate has been payments for results (outcomes) rather than payment for actions. We compare payment for modelled results findings with approximately equivalent payment for actions schemes intended to deliver increases in the same biodiversity indicators.
The Effectiveness of Global Protected Areas for Climate Change Mitigation
Forests play a critical role in stabilizing Earth’s climate. Establishing protected areas (PAs) represents one approach to forest conservation, but PAs were rarely created to mitigate climate change. The global impact of PAs on the carbon cycle has not previously been quantified due to a lack of accurate global-scale carbon stock maps.
Pathogen Spillover Driven by Rapid Changes in Bat Ecology
During recent decades, pathogens that originated in bats have become an increasing public health concern. Our long-term study identifies the mechanistic connections between habitat loss, climate and increased spillover risk. It provides a framework for examining causes of bat virus spillover and for developing ecological countermeasures to prevent pandemics.
Importance of a One Health Approach in Advancing Global Health Security and the Sustainable Development Goals
The One Health community has faced difficulties in determining specific One Health impact indicators for formally evaluating One Health successes. In this paper, the author a) briefly reviews the ongoing commentary on the recognized benefits of the implementation of a One Health approach in the global health security context, b) discusses challenges in measuring the impact of One Health, and c) proposes possible solutions for evaluating the impact of One Health on global health security.
Plastic Pollution: How Can the Global Health Community Fight the Growing Problem?
Plastic products and plastic waste threaten human health because of their toxicity, role in disease propagation, possible interference with food supply through their environmental effects and socioeconomic impacts. Despite the burden caused by plastic pollution, the topic does not appear to be a priority on the agenda of the global public health community. International health organizations have not been vocal about plastic pollution as a health threat, and the issue is not frequently discussed in the global health scientific literature.
Overcoming Resistance: The Expert Panel on Antimicrobial Availability
This report focuses on one aspect of a comprehensive solution to the growing threat of Antimicrobial resistance — encouraging the development and commercialization of novel antimicrobials through pull incentives that offer enhanced financial returns to manufacturers bringing qualifying antimicrobials to the Canadian market and, more importantly, to patients in Canada.
A Review on the Fate, Human Health and Environmental Impacts, and Regulation of Antibiotics Used in Aquaculture
Antibiotics have been a necessary component of animal husbandry and aquaculture since they were first used in clinical settings in the 1940s to meet the rising demand for foods generated from animals. Because of this, large-scale industrial animal production has become a hotspot for the evolution and spread of ARGs (antibiotic resistant genes), potentially posing a threat to public health. This review is focused on human health hazards related to antibiotic usages, ARGs in cattle, and aquaculture systems.
Investigating Infectious Organisms of Public Health Concern Associated with Wild Meat
The wild meat trade poses a significant threat to public health as it facilitates the spillover of zoonotic pathogens through high-risk activities such as the hunting, butchering, trade, and consumption of wild animals. Despite the health risks and association with marking epidemics including SARS, Ebola, and COVID-19, the global wild meat trade continues to thrive. The diversity of infectious organisms associated with wild meat are highlighted through this review and could be used to guide policy development.
Advancing Integrated Governance for Health Through National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans
In 2022, 196 government parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to update and redesign their national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) by the end of 2024. This paper proposes recommendations for aligning NBSAPs to optimize outcomes for biodiversity and health.
Summary for Policymakers: The Thematic Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and Their Control
The Invasive Alien Species Assessment explores how invasive alien species affect nature and people globally. It analyzes the status and trends of alien and invasive alien species in all regions of Earth, and identifies major pathways for and drivers of the introduction and spread of such species between and within countries.
Using Integrated Wildlife Monitoring to Prevent Future Pandemics Through One Health Approach
In the One Health context, Integrated Wildlife Monitoring (IWM) merges wildlife health monitoring and host community monitoring to early detect emerging infections, record changes in disease dynamics, and assess the impact of interventions in complex multi-host and multi-pathogen networks. This study reports the deployment and results obtained from a nationwide IWM pilot test in eleven sites representing the habitat diversity of mainland Spain.
One Health and Neglected Tropical Diseases
One Health is defined as an approach to achieve better health outcomes for humans, animals, and the environment through collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts. Increasingly, the One Health framework is being applied to the management, control, and even elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In this Special Issue, we present a diverse body of work united under the One Health ideology and a desire to mitigate the devastating effects of NTDs. The numerous diseases, methodologies, and landscapes presented highlight the interconnected and increasingly overlapping existence of humans, animals, and their pathogens.
Amazon Deforestation Drives Malaria Transmission, and Malaria Burden Reduces Forest Clearing
Deforestation and land use change are among the most pressing anthropogenic environmental impacts. In Brazil, a resurgence of malaria in recent decades paralleled rapid deforestation and settlement in the Amazon basin, yet evidence of a deforestation-driven increase in malaria remains equivocal. We hypothesize an underlying cause of this ambiguity is that deforestation and malaria influence each other in bidirectional causal relationships—deforestation increases malaria through ecological mechanisms and malaria reduces deforestation through socioeconomic mechanisms—and that the strength of these relationships depends on the stage of land use transformation.
Understanding How and Where Pathogens Emerge: Preparedness and Response for Zoonotic Diseases
This chapter will examine what we know about how and where zoonotic disease threats emerge and key gaps in the information needed for preparedness, both before an outbreak and in emergency response.
Evidence for Widespread Human Exposure to Food Contact Chemicals
Over 1800 food contact chemicals (FCCs) are known to migrate from food contact articles used to store, process, package, and serve foodstuffs. Humans are known to be exposed to FCCs via foods, but the full extent of human exposure to all FCCs is unknown. To close this important knowledge gap, we conducted a systematic overview of FCCs that have been monitored and detected in human biomonitoring studies according to a previously published protocol.
Planetary Health Learning Objectives: Foundational Knowledge for Global Health Education in an Era of Climate Change
In response to member demands for resources to support teaching and learning related to planetary health, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) convened a working group to develop a set of planetary health learning objectives (PHLOs) that would complement the existing ten CUGH global health learning objectives.
One Health, Many Perspectives: Exploring Indigenous and Western Epistemologies
The objective of this project is to identify values in Indigenous science that are unsupported or underrepresented in Western science and then collaboratively ideate recommendations that Western allies can take to center and support Indigenous scientists and elevate Indigenous knowledge.
A One Health Approach to Tackling AMR and Why Gender Matters: Findings from Pastoralist Communities in Tanzania
This paper focuses on the gendered risk of AMR through a study of gender and social determinants of access to and use of antimicrobials in low-resource pastoralist settings in Tanzania.
Red Seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) Supplementation Reduces Enteric Methane by Over 80 Percent in Beef Steers
The red macroalgae (seaweed) has shown to reduce ruminant enteric methane (CH4) production up to 99% in vitro. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of Asparagopsis taxiformis on CH4 production (g/day per animal), yield (g CH4/kg dry matter intake (DMI)), and intensity (g CH4/kg ADG); average daily gain (ADG; kg gain/day), feed conversion efficiency (FCE; kg ADG/kg DMI), and carcass and meat quality in growing beef steers.
How Decline of Indian Vultures Led to 500,000 Human Deaths
More than two decades ago, India’s vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows. The unintentional decimation of these heavy, scavenging birds allowed deadly bacteria and infections to proliferate, leading to the deaths of about half a million people over five years.
To Handle Zoonoses Better, Indigenous People Must be Included in Policy Making
For a better One Health strategy, India needs to integrate indigenous knowledge with the scientific framework that guide national health policies.
African Union AMR Landmark Report: Voicing African Priorities on the Active Pandemic
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a leading cause of death in the African region, surpassing fatalities from malaria, HIV, and TB. In response to this critical threat, the region has adopted the AMR Global Action Plan and the African Union Framework for Antimicrobial Resistance Control 2020 – 2025, which is tailored to meet the specific needs of African nations through a coordinated approach.
Captive Wildlife Management Survey in Vietnam, 2015–2021
In Vietnam, breeding and raising a wide range of wildlife species in captive wildlife facilities are common practices but little information on the captive wildlife population is available. The authors of this report conducted surveys and developed software to create a captive wildlife facilities management system.
Navigating New Horizons: A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing
This Navigating New Horizons report outlines a process focused on planetary health and human wellbeing—an intentional framing to expand the range of issues and informed views that typically shape United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s work.
Where and How to Invest in Greenspace for Optimal Health Benefits: A Systematic Review of Greenspace Morphology and Human Health Relationships
Research on the relationship between greenspace morphology and health is a growing field that informs the spatial design of greenspace to enhance health outcomes. This study reviews the current progress, methodologies, and knowledge gaps in this area.
Surprising New Research Links Infant Mortality to Crashing Bat Populations
According to the research, published Thursday in the journal Science, farmers in affected U.S. counties increased their use of insecticides by 31 percent when bat populations declined. In those places, infant mortality rose by an estimated 8 percent.
The Economic Impacts of Ecosystem Disruptions: Costs from Substituting Biological Pest Control
This work makes a contribution to our understanding of the relationship between ecosystem functioning and human well-being by using a natural experiment—an occurrence resulting from unexpected changes in environmental conditions that approximates a randomized control trial.
Unfulfilled Promise: Pollinator Declines, Crop Deficits, and Diet-Associated Disease
In a new study in Environmental Health Perspectives, a team of scientists estimated effects of pollinator deficits on five diet-associated disease end points: stroke, cancer, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and all-cause mortality associated with changes in weight.
