Challenges for implementing the One Health approach: review article

Abstract

Background. The «One Health» concept is a worldwide strategy of expanding the collaboration between the professionals from health science fields, working locally, nationally and globally – to achieve an optimal health for people, animals, plants and the environment. Objective of the study. Analysis of the scientific research and of the practical experience in the process of implementing the One Health approach and emphasize the challenges and solutions for overcoming them. Material and Methods. This present paper has studied the current research materials published in online medical databases as Medline (PubMed) and Scopus, the websites of the WHO, CDC regarding One Health approach. There were identified and evaluated 89 articles, 42 of which were selected according to source relevance. Results. Evidence-based research has shown promising collaborative interdisciplinary strategies in healthcare of humans, animals, environment, and recommend the implementation of the OH initiative. The authors describe the challenges encountered in implementing of this process: country policy, funding, education, educational formation, surveillance, intersectoral collaborations etc. The challenges identified at different levels are elaboration, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the common activities in One Health due to the difficulties in equal involvement of all the participants. Conclusion. The countries highlighted challenges as the existence of a fragmented legislation, lack of clarity of the definition, domain of implementation of OH initiative. Solutions: collaboration of professionals across sectors, development of common surveillance strategy and the assessment of OH concept.