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News & Reports One health
One Health: time to move on from just talking Researchers, practitioners, policymakers and business representatives were brought together at the University of Liverpool last month for two days of presentations, discussions and interdisciplinary networking on One Health. Laura Honey reports IT IS time for researchers to stop ‘just talking’ about One Health issues and to start getting research grants and writing papers about them, according to Susan Sanchez, director of the Georgia Veterinary Scholars Program at the University of Georgia in the USA. Opening proceedings on the first day of the second International Symposium on One Health, held at the University of Liverpool from June 19 to 21, Professor Sanchez said that taking a One Health approach to many different aspects of research was very important for the future. However, for grants to be awarded for One Health research, grant-giving bodies required proof that researchers could do what they said they could do, and that they really would collaborate. The symposium brought together delegates from the University of Georgia, the University of Liverpool, the Royal Veterinary College, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and Public Health England, allowing for interdisciplinary networking and discussions. ‘What we plan to do over the next few days is to work out new relationships and get people working together in research on both sides of the Atlantic,’ Professor Sanchez said. The main themes for the symposium were food safety, natural and social science interactions, antimicrobial resistance, obesity, and emerging and new infectious diseases. Since the first International Symposium on One Health, which was held at the University of Georgia in 2013, two student scholarships have been set up to enable students from Georgia university to undertake research at Liverpool university and strengthen the One Health partnership between the two institutions. Malcolm Bennett, professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Liverpool, announced that, the day before the second symposium began, the universities of Georgia and Liverpool had signed an agreement extending their formal links and allowing them to continue to work together over the next few years. Tracing the history of One Health, Abigail Woods, reader in the history of animal and human health at King’s College London, explained that veterinary-medical
Delegates listen to one of the presentations during the One Health symposium at Liverpool university
collaboration had a complex history and that many factors (eg, political, social and institutional) had played a part in shaping the One Health model. She elaborated on a number of areas discussed in her recent feature article in Veterinary Record (VR, June 28, 2014, vol 174, pp 650-654). Following Dr Woods’ presentation there was a discussion around the true meaning of One Health and how it might be defined. Mike Begon, deputy head of the School of Biological Sciences at Liverpool university, commented that, ‘if One Health is to be defined as an underlying principle of human and veterinary medicine, encouraging the two fields to work together and learn from each other, while this may be helpful, it is little more than telling the professions to just behave’. He added that the study of zoonoses had been used as ‘a perfect illustration’ of One Health because researchers focused on studying the reservoir of disease and the interface with humans. However, he believed, this did not need to be given a One Health label, as it was simply the study of zoonoses. ‘I suppose I had hoped that there was somehow something more to it than that . . . that there is a kind of acknowledgment that, at some level, human health and wellbeing depends upon animal health and wellbeing,’ he said. Dr Woods commented that she could see how having a working definition of One
Health would be helpful from the point of view of writing research proposals for grants, but she did not feel it was helpful to have a single definition, as the field was constantly moving and people would often just define One Health in a way that made sense to those involved. In other presentations, Nicola Williams, senior lecturer in zoonotic disease at Liverpool university, discussed the work she had been doing over the past few years on antimicrobial resistance in dogs and horses from both an animal welfare point of view and in terms of the transmission of resistance to people. Susan Dawson, head of Liverpool veterinary school, described some of the work being undertaken at the university on how owners might be motivated to walk their dogs more and thus address the obesity problem in companion animals. Mary Alice Smith, associate professor in environmental health science at the University of Georgia, discussed predicting the risk of Listeria-induced stillbirths based on dose-response data from animal models. Meanwhile, Dilys Morgan, head of the department of gastrointestinal, emerging and zoonotic infections at Public Health England, described the work of the Human Animal Infection and Risk Surveillance (HAIRS) group (see also VR, July 19, 2014, vol 175 pp 61-63). doi: 10.1136/vr.g4746 July 26, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 83
83 One Health symposium.indd 83
23/07/2014 15:45
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 12, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
One Health: time to move on from just talking
Veterinary Record 2014 175: 83
doi: 10.1136/vr.g4746 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/175/4/83
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To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
News & Reports One health
One Health: time to move on from just talking Researchers, practitioners, policymakers and business representatives were brought together at the University of Liverpool last month for two days of presentations, discussions and interdisciplinary networking on One Health. Laura Honey reports IT IS time for researchers to stop ‘just talking’ about One Health issues and to start getting research grants and writing papers about them, according to Susan Sanchez, director of the Georgia Veterinary Scholars Program at the University of Georgia in the USA. Opening proceedings on the first day of the second International Symposium on One Health, held at the University of Liverpool from June 19 to 21, Professor Sanchez said that taking a One Health approach to many different aspects of research was very important for the future. However, for grants to be awarded for One Health research, grant-giving bodies required proof that researchers could do what they said they could do, and that they really would collaborate. The symposium brought together delegates from the University of Georgia, the University of Liverpool, the Royal Veterinary College, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and Public Health England, allowing for interdisciplinary networking and discussions. ‘What we plan to do over the next few days is to work out new relationships and get people working together in research on both sides of the Atlantic,’ Professor Sanchez said. The main themes for the symposium were food safety, natural and social science interactions, antimicrobial resistance, obesity, and emerging and new infectious diseases. Since the first International Symposium on One Health, which was held at the University of Georgia in 2013, two student scholarships have been set up to enable students from Georgia university to undertake research at Liverpool university and strengthen the One Health partnership between the two institutions. Malcolm Bennett, professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Liverpool, announced that, the day before the second symposium began, the universities of Georgia and Liverpool had signed an agreement extending their formal links and allowing them to continue to work together over the next few years. Tracing the history of One Health, Abigail Woods, reader in the history of animal and human health at King’s College London, explained that veterinary-medical
Delegates listen to one of the presentations during the One Health symposium at Liverpool university
collaboration had a complex history and that many factors (eg, political, social and institutional) had played a part in shaping the One Health model. She elaborated on a number of areas discussed in her recent feature article in Veterinary Record (VR, June 28, 2014, vol 174, pp 650-654). Following Dr Woods’ presentation there was a discussion around the true meaning of One Health and how it might be defined. Mike Begon, deputy head of the School of Biological Sciences at Liverpool university, commented that, ‘if One Health is to be defined as an underlying principle of human and veterinary medicine, encouraging the two fields to work together and learn from each other, while this may be helpful, it is little more than telling the professions to just behave’. He added that the study of zoonoses had been used as ‘a perfect illustration’ of One Health because researchers focused on studying the reservoir of disease and the interface with humans. However, he believed, this did not need to be given a One Health label, as it was simply the study of zoonoses. ‘I suppose I had hoped that there was somehow something more to it than that . . . that there is a kind of acknowledgment that, at some level, human health and wellbeing depends upon animal health and wellbeing,’ he said. Dr Woods commented that she could see how having a working definition of One
Health would be helpful from the point of view of writing research proposals for grants, but she did not feel it was helpful to have a single definition, as the field was constantly moving and people would often just define One Health in a way that made sense to those involved. In other presentations, Nicola Williams, senior lecturer in zoonotic disease at Liverpool university, discussed the work she had been doing over the past few years on antimicrobial resistance in dogs and horses from both an animal welfare point of view and in terms of the transmission of resistance to people. Susan Dawson, head of Liverpool veterinary school, described some of the work being undertaken at the university on how owners might be motivated to walk their dogs more and thus address the obesity problem in companion animals. Mary Alice Smith, associate professor in environmental health science at the University of Georgia, discussed predicting the risk of Listeria-induced stillbirths based on dose-response data from animal models. Meanwhile, Dilys Morgan, head of the department of gastrointestinal, emerging and zoonotic infections at Public Health England, described the work of the Human Animal Infection and Risk Surveillance (HAIRS) group (see also VR, July 19, 2014, vol 175 pp 61-63). doi: 10.1136/vr.g4746 July 26, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 83
83 One Health symposium.indd 83
23/07/2014 15:45
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 12, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
One Health: time to move on from just talking
Veterinary Record 2014 175: 83
doi: 10.1136/vr.g4746 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/175/4/83
These include:
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
