BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1656241
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Veterinary Access Through One Health and Interprofessional CollaborationsView all 14 articles
One Health and Human Animal-Bond Intervention Strategies-Assessing Veterinary-Social Service Collaborations
Provisionally accepted
- 1Kansas State University, Manhattan, United States
- 2Street Dog Coalition - Topeka Chapter, Topeka, KS, United States
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This study evaluates a novel interdisciplinary outreach model integrating veterinary care, social work, and public health services to serve unhoused populations and their companion animals in Topeka, Kansas. Grounded in structural vulnerability theory and One Health principles, the project examined the Street Dog Coalition's (SDC) partnership with the Mobile Access Partnership (MAP), focusing on how the human-animal bond functions as a catalyst for trust, engagement, and care continuity. Using a qualitatively driven, mixed-methods design, the research team conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with beneficiaries, volunteers, program staff, and external collaborators, supplemented by descriptive service utilization data. Thematic analysis revealed six interrelated themes: the transformative power of the human-animal bond, trust-building as foundational to engagement, structural barriers to care continuity, tensions in the graduation process, emotional impact on providers, and the emergence of a relational ecosystem of care. Findings underscore the relational and structural dynamics of service delivery, highlighting the dual importance of compassionate, trauma-informed care and policy-level reforms. This research contributes to the growing evidence base for integrated One Health interventions and offers critical insight into how veterinary-social service collaborations can operationalize equity, dignity, and mutual healing in structurally vulnerable contexts.
Keywords: One Health, human-animal bond, veterinary outreach, Structural vulnerability, Homelessness, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Trauma-informed care, Community-based services
Received: 29 Jun 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Orchard, Scarbrough, Crow, Baldwin and Moreau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ronald J Orchard, orchard@vet.k-state.edu
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