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From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2024

A response to the following question: Is there an ideal curriculum and pedagogy to achieve an optimal One Health practitioner capable of contributing to the growing expectations for One Health?

Craig Stephen*
Affiliation:
McEachran Institute, British Columbia, Canada
Alana Wilcox
Affiliation:
Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Jennifer Provencher
Affiliation:
Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Canada
*
Corresponding author: Craig Stephen; Email: craigstephen.pes@gmail.com
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Abstract

We used a narrative literature review to identify attributes of One Health practitioners who can close the gap between intention and action to protect and promote health in this era of polycrises. The intention in this essay was to instigate discourse that challenges the current state of One Health teaching and practice, thus helping us reflect on how to future-ready One Health. One Health researchers and practitioners must become agents of change who accelerate and amplify innovations that promote One Health as a settings-based approach to advance interspecies and intergenerational health equity. This essay outlines how future readiness and disruption are intertwined and proposes that One Health training needs to cultivate curiosity, agility and convergence thinking to create future-ready researchers and practitioners. Institutional systems that can support future-ready One Health agents of change will need to be attentive to mechanisms that close the knowing-to-doing gap and promote crossing barriers. Game changing One Health requires greater investment in cross-cutting capacities and ideas that will make it easier to see what is working and for whom. At the heart of this issue is the need to mainstream concepts of fairness and redistribution of the health resources between people, animals, and settings.

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Type
Impact Paper
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Table 1. Selected advice for building disruptive teams; lessons from business management

Author comment: From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change. — R0/PR1

Comments

No accompanying comment.

Review: From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change. — R0/PR2

Comments

Incorrect referencing

1: WHO. (2022). World Health Organization. One health joint plan of action (2022‒2026): working together

for the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/363518/9789240059139-eng.pdf

should be:

FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH. 2022. One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026). Working together for the health of humans, animals,

plants and the environment. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2289en

2: Anon. (2020). A framework for place-based approaches. Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

Government of Victoria, Australia. https://www.vic.gov.au/framework-place-based-approaches/print-all

This is a govt document without a listed author. The organisation should be listed as the author in this case.

Comments:

The Need (P2): The target(s) of the desired outcome is a bit muddy - Page 2 The need is a desire to 'empower OH researchers and practitioners become active agents of change'. The end of this paragraph links responsiveness with education and training focused on 'practitioners, policy makers and researchers', The end of the section (Page 3) refers to 'One Health practitioners.'

It would be helpful to understand what you think a One Health Practitioner is within the context of the essay as well as within the implementation of a settings-based/multilevel approach. Are they inclusive of 'practitioners, policy makers and researchers' or are they separate? Do you see that the focus of educational change needs to be holistic (given One Health is transdisciplinary), or predominantly within One Health specific training? Are One Health Practitioners the product of higher education?

Neither Rabinowitz et al (2017) and Villanueva Cabezas et al (2022) provide a declaration by an educational institution about the importance of One Health - they are both narrative review/opinion papers by academics about the rationale of incorporating OH into both clinical competencies (Rabinowitz) and undergraduate education (Villanueva Cabezas) (Page 2)

' There is no universally accepted and consistently applied operational definition of One Health.' Page 3

I know there is no 'official' definition of One Health, but the OHHLEP definition seems to have been used consistently since its release by a diverse range of organizations.

Page 3 'The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion states that health is created and lived within the settings of everyday life (WHO 1986), suggesting that the settings should be the ‘one’ in One Health. A settings-based approach to One Health responds to the current paradigm of ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ that has been shown useful in implementing actions around current global challenges....'

The WHO defines a setting as '“The place or social context in which people engage in daily activities in which environmental, organizational, and personal factors interact to affect health and wellbeing.” (https://www.who.int/teams/health-promotion/enhanced-wellbeing/healthy-settings). Setting based approaches are based in Public Health and are often in the context of human-centric health and well being, so their translation into implementation of One Health isn't instantly apparent.

Dyche and Epstein 2011 is a paper about curiosity in medical education within the context of training clinicians. There is probably a better reference to use here wrt researchers and curiosity.

The section on 'Convergence thinking' (page 6) could be better referenced, in particular the definition. While interesting, neither of the two references you cited in this section of the paper use this terminology. Halloun (2020), which you cite, talks about 'differential convergence education'; references I found which aligned with your definition used 'Convergence Science' (Harris A Eyre et al 2015 Strengthening the role of convergence science in medicine Converg. Sci. Phys. Oncol. 1 026001 DOI 10.1088/2057-1739/1/2/026001 and Sundstrom SM, Angeler DG, Bell J, Hayes M, Hodbod J, Jalalzadeh-Fard B, Mahmood R, VanWormer E, Allen CR. Panarchy theory for convergence. Sustain Sci. 2023 Mar 14:1-16. doi: 10.1007/s11625-023-01299-z. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37363302; PMCID: PMC10013239.) or 'Convergence' (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/18722.)

This is a very interesting essay with thought provoking challenges to those of us who work in One Health.

There are many ideas presented within the essay, which at times could be more clearly connected - eg the section on 'Becoming future-ready' concludes, 'future ready One Health practitioners should cultivate four key abilities to; (i) anticipate the future consequences of our actions; (ii) incorporate future implications into present-day decision-making; (iii) help people and ideas come together to understand what choices need to be made and what information is needed to make those decision and (iv) expand beyond the tyranny of the urgent and the fixation on explaining the cause of past harms toward building capacity that generates options for an uncertain future' - which is linked to the stated need 'desire to empower One Health researchers and practitioners to be active agents of change.' (page 2).

The next section on 'Disruption...', while related with respect to operationalisation of One health within teams, seems to be a tangent, predominantly linked to research teams/groups and scientific teams -thus narrowing what seems to be a broader scope earlier in the essay as suggested by a settings-based approach - this seeming (but not stated) to be inclusive of a more diverse range of disciplines, sectors and the community.

The return to the objectives of education and empowerment, with elaboration of some key critical thinking skills seems to be more directly related to the 'four key abilities' referred to earlier.

While the critical thinking skills outlined are broadly applicable to participants in One Health action across the whole system from frontline workers to governance within a settings-based approach, the essay appears to be mainly addressing those engaged in and with higher education. Defining a 'One Health Practitioner' and establishing the educational targets would be helpful to the reader.

Recommendation: From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change. — R0/PR3

Comments

The paper has been well received by reviewers and their comments reflect this challenging article which should stimulate debate. Please give attention to the comments and prepare an appropriate change or rebuttal for our consideration. I have kept this at Major Revision level so that you give it full attention. It may not warrant major changes but more explanation of the areas of concern should see this through. Thank you.

The decision is held at major revision.

Author comment: From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change. — R1/PR4

Comments

No accompanying comment.

Decision: From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change. — R1/PR5

Comments

Thank you for addressing in full the reviewer comments.

This paper is welcome now in fully revised form and will be a valuable addition to the RD OH outputs.