Concepts and experiences in framing, integration and evaluation of One Health and EcoHealth

Human health and well-being are increasingly affected by global challenges such as malnutrition, emerging and endemic zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change. Integrated approaches are key to and a big challenge in the field of nature/environment and health linkages, and allow dealing with the multiple interrelated factors that affect human, animal and ecosystem health in a holistic and pragmatic manner. The One Health framework was proposed jointly by several international organizations (WHO, FAO, OIE, CBD) as an umbrella framework for integrated collaboration. In this context, the EU COST Action (TD1404) “Network for Evaluation of One Health” (NEOH) . has developed a science-based evaluation protocol to evaluate One Health initiatives. During the European OneHealth/EcoHealth workshop held in October 2016 in Brussels, an important step was taken to combine the rich experience of the EcoHealth community with the ongoing work of One Health community. Parallels and complementarities became evident and many of the challenges and opportunities were discussed.

In this Research Topic we seek to reflect the current debate on framing One Health and/or EcoHealth in terms of scope(s) and delimitations, integration challenges from a scientific, policy, sector and/or implementer perspective, and evaluation of such integrated initiatives. Manuscripts should be focused on generating knowledge and practice. We also invite reports of case studies that apply the NEOH methodology in order to highlight strengths, weaknesses and added value of One Health based on practical examples in a variety of contexts. Submissions of cases that philosophically follow a similar concept are also welcome. They will be selected based on their impact on public, animal, and environmental health, relevance for the region in which the study has been conducted, and novelty of the transdisciplinary and trans-sectorial approach.

Keywords: One health, quantitative evaluation, evaluation framework, Qualitative evaluation, public, human, veterinary and environmental health, transdisciplinarity, validation, Network for Evaluation of One Health, Ecohealth

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.