By: Laura Pulscher
One Health is an approach that recognizes that human, animal, and environmental health are all interconnected. While the concept of One Health has been around for 2 centuries, the term “One Health” was first coined during a Wildlife Conservation
Society symposium in 2004 which discussed the movement of diseases among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. Twelve priorities, called the Manhattan Principles, were established during the consortium and called for an interdisciplinary “One
Health, One World” approach to combat disease. Over the last two decades, the One Health concept has gained attention and support from various public and animal health communities.
So, why does One Health matter? As Dr. Gary Kobinger, PhD, OM, MSC director of the Galveston National Lab at UTMB states “…it is important for infectious diseases, period. And not just infectious diseases…the work is not only important
to human health, but it is important to animal health and important to the environment.” While the One Health concept has started gaining more traction over the years in the field of human medicine, this was not always the case. As Dr. Dennis
Bente, DVM, PhD an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UTMB states “….as a trained veterinarian I had a lot of exposure to One Health training, but I noticed the concept of One Health was not as well
recognized in the human medicine field….this was surprising considering that a significant portion of the research conducted at UTMB focused on zoonotic diseases which are heavily tied to one health and animal health.”
Dr. Bente wanted to convince those in the human medicine field of the importance of One Health. Hence, in 2015 Bente started increasing awareness of One Health at UTMB through a weekend long outbreak investigation course for medical students. This turned
out to be a huge hit! Over the years this course evolved into a 4-week long training course that incorporated both medical students from UTMB, graduate students from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and veterinary students from Texas A&M
which would “follow” an outbreak across the great state of Texas while learning different skills along the way ranging from collecting tick/mosquito vectors, trapping wildlife, and caring for patients.
The face of One Health continues to grow at UTMB, as Kobinger states “…it is great to see faculty like Dr. Gregory Gray coming here and to see the School of Public Health starting to grow exponentially….UTMB is positioning itself very
well to be a big player into One Health in the future.”
See below resources explaining One Health and its importance.