Woman farmer in Ghana. Credit: CABI

Farmers receiving advice at a joint clinic. Credit: Christine Alokit, CABI

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Project Overview

So, what’s the problem

Today’s world faces a wide variety of health challenges. The multifaceted, complex nature of these threats means that they cannot be approached from a purely medical, veterinary, plant or ecological viewpoint. Instead, collaborative, multi-sector approaches that cut across human, ecosystem, animal and plant health are essential to ensuring that responses to health hazards are both sustainable and effective.

In the past two decades, One Health has emerged as a compelling framework for improving the health of people, animals, plants, and ecosystems. In contrast to human-centric paradigms of health, One Health is based on the assumption that the health of humans, animals, plants, and the wider environment is closely linked and inter-dependent. This interdependency means that no single discipline or sector can tackle threats to health in isolation. Advocates of the concept argue that removing the barriers which divide disciplines and sectors and moving away from siloed methods are pivotal to achieving a “whole of society” approach to health. Communication, coordination, collaboration and capacity-building across multiple sectors, disciplines, government departments and international organizations is seen as essential to optimizing health security across One Health’s domains.

However, there have been numerous difficulties translating One Health from ideas into practice, and many barriers still exist to operationalizing the concept effectively. Moreover, there are numerous knowledge gaps in One Health research even while  One Health continues to gather significant momentum and gain popularity across the globe.

What is this project doing?

The One Health Hub is a responsive knowledge and learning platform that informs a cross-sectoral One Health agenda encompassing human, animal, plant, and environment health within FCDO animal and plant health grants. To date, the One Health Hub has identified One Health research gaps and carried out synthesis of evidence on key topics such as zoonoses that can inform research and policy decision-making within FCDO programmes as well as in the global One Health community.

The project’s work is organised around two complementary streams:

1. Research Roadmap – identifying and prioritising key One Health evidence gaps and research opportunities to inform future investments, strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration and guide the development of a strategic One Health research agenda
2. One Health in Practice – supporting the operationalisation of One Health approaches by identifying practical mechanisms, tools and learning opportunities that enable integration across sectors and disciplines, and translating evidence into policy and programme action.

Zoonoses is a spotlight topic within the project, providing a focus for evidence synthesis, knowledge sharing and stakeholder engagement to support improved understanding, prevention and management of diseases that occur at the human-animal-ecosystem interface.