Lecture 5: Onehealth Flashcards
What is One Health?
A concept and an approach
Concept: human health, animal health and environmental health are strongly interconnected
Approach: A collaborative effort of many disciplines working locally, nationally and globally to attain optimum health of humans, animals and the environment
*definition of environment can vary ex at Uni Guelph it can be social political or economical
What is the history of One Health?
Rudolf Virchow
-Thought that 1 field can learn from another and vice versa
Calvin Schwabe (Coined the term Onehealth)
-Mentioned that there is an overlap between animal and humans
What are foundations of approach?
-Considers all 3 domains (pillars): Animal, human, environment
-Requires new “tool” to address complexity
-Incorporates the principles of
1. Systems thinking
2. Transdisiplinarity
What is the difference between complex and complicated?
Complicated: hard, takes a lot of steps and planning but there is a solution (knee surgery)
Complex: Unknowns, different perspectives and there isn’t a “right” or “perfect” solution
What is systems thinking?
Complexity requires systems thinking
-A holistic approach to examining a ‘system’ that includes how the individual parts are interconnected and how that ‘system’ is part of the broader context
(System for ex digestive system and elements such as organs, nerves, etc)
-Considers: scale, non-linearity, feedback, uncertainty, and unintended consequences
What is a system composed of?
Elements + Interconnections + Function/Purpose
What is transdisciplinarity?
-FROM PROF: An approach that brings together and integrates different perspectives and knowledge to generate new ideas, understandings and approaches
-MY NOTES: Involves professionals from different disciplinaries and the community/people outside of academia to get a well rounded view
-Integration of disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and then transdisciplinary
What are the strengths of OneHealth?
-More fulsome understanding of current issues –> reduced risks + faster recognition of problems
-Increase collaboration between stakeholders –> more effective interventions
-Reduced overall costs (more long term that see affect)
-Enhanced resiliency and sustainability of ecosystems
-Improved human health and wellbeing
-Improved animal health and welfare
What are some challenges of One Health?
-Who is responsible (everyones responsibility but yet no ones at the same time, common for others to blame or putt responsibility on others even though it will also effect them)
-Failure to break down silos (disciplines): need to break the walls down that separates the different areas
-Lack of social scientists (used to be very science discipline but involves an understanding of people and there behaviour so social science is important too)
-Short term gain (sustainable and effective approach and interventions but short term increased time, higher financial investment)
What are some inconsistent applications of One Health?
-All components are ‘included’ but without integration (dont think of it like a check box but they should be interconnected)
-Only two components are considered (usually happens to be people and animals coming from the idea of one medicine, environment tends to be left out)
-One Health by the same organization/person (never done by just 1 person involves “collaboration” never have all knowledge of everything)
-One ‘component’ prioritized over the others (dont prioritize human health all systems should be connected)
