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The Concept of One Medicine

Lonnie J. King, DVM, MS, MPA, DACVPM

Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Today’s world is rapidly changing, complex, and progres- While the concept of One Health is not new, it has
sively more interconnected. The convergence of people, enjoyed a new recognition based on today’s complex
animals, and our environment has created a new dynamic challenges to our health. The veterinary profession is
characterized by a profound and unprecedented interde- especially well equipped through our broad training in
pendence in which the health of all three domains is now herd health, comparative medicine, epidemiology, prob-
inextricably linked and elaborately connected. Over the lem solving, and disease ecology to play an important
last three decades, approximately 75% of new emerging role in implementing new One Health strategies.
human diseases have been zoonotic. The human–animal
interface is expanding, accelerating, and becoming
increasingly more consequential. At the same time, we Factors Driving One Health
have permanently altered a significant portion of our
environment, ecosystems, and habitats and have created In a publication entitled Microbial Threats to Health:
a new ecological milieu that is changing both the condi- Emergence, Detection, and Response, authors from the
tions of our human–animal interface and the conditions Institute of Medicine suggested that a group of factors have
for microbial adaptation and the emergence and reemer- simultaneously converged to create a “perfect microbial
gence of infectious diseases worldwide. storm” [1]. The most important of these factors include:
Our new interdependence includes social, economic, ● adaptation of microbes
political, and biological conditions that are creating new ● global travel and transportation
threats to the health of people, animals, and our environ- ● host susceptibility
ment. We can no longer focus on these threats separately ● intent to do harm
from each other. Our contemporary challenge is to cre- ● climate change
ate and implement a new mindset and strategies to ● economic development and land use
address our threats to health based on a holistic and inte- ● human demographics and behavior
grated approach with a special emphasis on prevention ● a breakdown of both public and animal health
and attacking problems closer to their origin that is often infra structures.
within the animal and environmental domains. This
approach is the essence of the concept of One Health.
One Health can be defined as the collaborative effort The Human Domain
of multiple disciplines – working locally, nationally, and
globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, The world population has a growth rate of 1.2% per year
and our environment. The scope of One Health is and the next century will represent a period of exponen-
impressive, broad, and growing. Much of the recent tial growth. We add approximately 10 000 people per
focus on One Health has been limited to emerging hour to our global population every day. Approximately
infectious diseases yet the concept clearly embraces 90% of the world’s population growth is occurring in the
environmental and ecosystem health, social sciences, developing countries where we are most concerned
biodiversity, ecology, noninfectious diseases and chronic about a lack of adequate public and animal health infra-
diseases and much more. structure. In addition, almost 1 billion people live in

Clinical Small Animal Internal Medicine Volume I, First Edition. Edited by David S. Bruyette.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/bruyette/clinical