One World. One Health. No Silos.
One Health Day, observed every November 3, highlights the connections among people, animals, plants and the environments they share. The international campaign began in 2016 to encourage collaboration across disciplines. [1]
One Health is the approach behind that collaboration: bringing different fields together to protect health across these connected systems. It applies to threats such as diseases that spread between animals and people, antimicrobial resistance and food-safety risks. [2]
For public-health teams and their partners, the practical question is straightforward: when a warning sign appears in one part of the system, who else needs to know, and what should happen next?
How health connects across sectors
A food-safety investigation may involve farms, water, transport and healthcare. A mosquito-borne illness may require information about weather, vectors, animal hosts and human exposure. Looking at only one part of either problem can leave important questions unanswered. [2]
Physicians, veterinarians, environmental scientists and agricultural professionals each bring expertise that the others need. One Health helps them frame a shared problem while keeping their distinct responsibilities clear. It does not require everyone to become an expert in every field.
How One Health surveillance supports prevention
Surveillance becomes more useful when the people interpreting it can see relevant information beyond their own sector. A change in animal disease patterns, for example, may deserve consideration alongside human-health reports or environmental observations. It is a signal to investigate, not proof that an outbreak in people will follow.
A systematic review by Bordier and colleagues examined how One Health surveillance systems organize collaboration. It identified factors that can support or obstruct implementation and performance, underscoring the importance of designing collaboration around the hazard, context and surveillance objective. [3]
The operational questions matter as much as the data: who reviews a signal, who can share it, which partners should receive it and who is responsible for follow-up? Teams also need to know what the information cannot establish. Different definitions, incomplete records or delays in reporting can change how a finding should be interpreted.
Why antimicrobial resistance needs a One Health response
Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, occurs when microorganisms become resistant to medicines used to treat them. It affects human, animal and plant health. Resistant organisms and resistance genes can move through connected pathways involving people, animals, food, wastewater and the wider environment. [4]
UNEP’s Bracing for Superbugs report explains why environmental action belongs alongside responsible antimicrobial use and infection prevention. Wastewater management, sanitation, pharmaceutical pollution and agricultural practices are relevant parts of the response. [4]
The joint One Health Priority Research Agenda for AMR also brings these sectors together. Its priorities span transmission, integrated surveillance, interventions, behavior, economics and policy. [5] For teams working on AMR, that breadth is a useful reminder to involve partners outside their usual professional network.
How ecosystem change can influence disease risk
Changes in land use can alter contact among wildlife, domestic animals and people, as well as the conditions that influence infection and pathogen shedding. Plowright and colleagues describe these relationships in their work on land use-induced spillover. [6]
That does not mean every environmental change causes an outbreak. Risk depends on the pathogen, hosts, exposure pathways and local conditions. Environmental information can help teams ask better questions about those conditions, rather than treating human illness as an isolated event.
Putting One Health into practice
In 2022, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, United Nations Environment Programme, World Health Organization and World Organisation for Animal Health, collectively known as the Quadripartite, published the One Health Joint Plan of Action. Its areas of work include stronger capacities, zoonotic and vector-borne disease risks, food safety, AMR and environmental integration. [7] In August 2026, the organizations extended its implementation period through 2029. [8]
For a local team, a practical starting point is to choose one shared risk and work through the following questions. This is a proposed planning checklist, not a validated assessment tool or a substitute for local protocols.
Identify the partners. Who holds relevant human-health, animal-health, environmental or food-system information? Include people who understand the affected community and how decisions will be carried out.
Agree which signals to share. Define the concern, the minimum information needed and the trigger for contacting another sector. Document uncertainty and use appropriate permissions and privacy safeguards.
Assign the next action. Name who will review the information, decide whether further investigation is needed and communicate the decision. Agree on a response timeframe that fits the risk.
Review what happened. Record the finding, decision and follow-up. Ask whether useful information arrived in time, whether responsibilities were clear and what should change before the next signal.
A useful next step for One Health Day
One Health Day offers a chance to move from general agreement to a specific improvement. Choose one risk your organization already manages and ask which partner’s information could change the decision. Then agree how that information will reach the right person and what action it could support.
Collaboration alone cannot eliminate disease risk. Its value depends on the quality of the evidence, the resources available and whether shared information leads to a clear, proportionate response. That is how the idea of connected health becomes useful in everyday practice.
References
One Health Commission. One Health Day. Source
World Health Organization. One Health. Fact sheet, May 8, 2026. Source
Bordier, M., Uea-Anuwong, T., Binot, A., Hendrikx, P., & Goutard, F. L. (2020). Characteristics of One Health surveillance systems: A systematic literature review. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 181, 104560. Source
United Nations Environment Programme. (2023). Bracing for Superbugs: Strengthening Environmental Action in the One Health Response to Antimicrobial Resistance. Source
FAO, UNEP, WHO, & WOAH. (2023). A One Health Priority Research Agenda for Antimicrobial Resistance. Source
Plowright, R. K., Reaser, J. K., Locke, H., et al. (2021). Land use-induced spillover: A call to action to safeguard environmental, animal, and human health. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(4), e237–e245. Source
FAO, UNEP, WHO, & WOAH. (2022). One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026): Working Together for the Health of Humans, Animals, Plants and the Environment. Source
World Health Organization. Quadripartite collaboration extends the One Health Joint Plan of Action to 2029. August 14, 2026. Source
