When did you first become aware of the One Health framework? For me, it was a meeting on the Iowa State University campus back in the "aughts" that brought together campus leaders, researchers and other stakeholder from across the university. It was a really novel concept to me at the time, but I was in a different role and really didn't think that much about One Health or try to apply it in my work until joining NIAMRRE years later in 2020. And while the term "One Health" was first used in 2003-20041, the concept dates back to the 19th century when Dr. Rudolf Virchow recognized the link between human and animal health while studying Trichinella spiralis in pigs; Dr. Virchow is also credited with coining the term "zoonosis" to describe an infectious disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans2. Still, it has only been in more recent decades that the One Health approach has started to gain traction as a framework for addressing the challenges posed by emerging and other diseases that lie at the intersections of One Health. Today I Googled "One Health" and about 18,470,000,000 hits (give or take one or two) were returned. I would say that One Health is entering or has entered the mainstream, especially with the recent Federal Register Notice for public comment for the draft National One Health Framework to Address Zoonotic Diseases and Advance Public Health Preparedness in the United States: A Framework for One Health Coordination and Collaboration across Federal Agencies.
Readers of this post are welcome to comment on when they first became aware of the One Health approach and what One Health means to them.
1.Wildlife Conservation Society One World-One Health: Building Interdisciplinary Bridges. [(accessed on 27 September 2023)];2004 Available online: http://www.oneworldonehealth.org/sept2004/owoh_sept04.html .
2. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/history/index.html [(accessed on 27 September 2023)].