Tackling Climate Change Using the One Health Approach
April 22, 2024 | Shelbi Davis, Courtney Youngbar
As the world celebrates Earth Day, we acknowledge the exceptional work of environmental and public health professionals and organizations who work together to protect the health and wellbeing of our communities. While there has been tremendous progress to celebrate, we must also address the growing frequency and severity of environmental health risks, particularly extreme weather events and the changing climate. Climate scientists and researchers describe climate change as a “threat multiplier” because of its potential to exacerbate pre-existing threats, such as the emergence and spread of vector-borne, zoonotic, and waterborne diseases; air, water, and food pollution; and health inequities and environmental injustices.
Through ASTHO’s Climate and Health Policy Statement, state and territorial health agencies (S/THAs) work to support the prevention, protection, and response to the impacts of climate change. However, many S/THAs do not receive the necessary funding and support to implement climate and health activities in their jurisdictions. Transdisciplinary approaches that encompass multiple areas of health and the environment, such as One Health, can create opportunities for S/THAs to increase their capacity to conduct climate and health activities through partnerships with other organizations.
What is One Health?
The One Health approach recognizes that the health of humans, animals, and the environment are all interconnected. One Health requires the cooperation of multiple partners and stakeholders across sectors and with various areas of expertise to solve challenges. While different concepts overall, a One Health approach shares similarities to a health in all policies (HiAP) approach, in which decision-makers work collaboratively across sectors to integrate health considerations into policies and programming. Through cross-sector collaboration and advance planning, S/THAs can work with their environmental, veterinary, and agricultural counterparts to improve the resiliency of their jurisdictions to threats posed by the natural environment.
Common public health issues that One Health can address include antimicrobial resistance, food safety, vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, pollution (i.e., harmful algal blooms), environmental contaminants, and climate change. However, multiple public health challenges may benefit from One Health collaboration, including the current Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) outbreak in the United States. This incident exemplifies the importance of agriculture, animal health, and public health working together, as this virus has now spread from poultry and dairy farms to a human, potentially through exposure to dairy cattle.
Using a One Health Approach to Address Climate and Health Risks
One Health can be a helpful, and potentially necessary, approach to climate change adaptation. The interconnections and linkages between climate change, environmental health, agricultural ecosystems, wildlife habitats, and human health and wellbeing require solutions that address these interactions. S/THAs may:
- Incorporate One Health into their agencies by establishing multi-sectoral committees to adopt best practice and research into social practice and governance processes that affect the changing climate. Examples include working groups comprised of government, public health, agriculture, wildlife, academia/universities, hospitals, and environmental protection that promote transdisciplinary partnerships.
- Facilitate data sharing across multiple sectors (e.g., environment, veterinary, agriculture, healthcare) to ensure that all drivers of the climate and health impacts, such as poor air quality that causes cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are accounted for to guide risk reduction programs and policies.
- Improve preparedness and response through effective prevention and detection. Such solutions include enhanced surveillance of wildlife reservoirs and early emerging disease detection, and warning systems that trigger response to certain climate hazards (i.e., extreme heat and poor air quality events).
- Consider a HiAP approach to engage with partners across sectors to identify and address interconnected public health risk factors related to social, economic, and environmental determinants.
Case Study: Delaware Department of Public Health
Delaware Department of Public Health, Office of Infectious Disease Epidemiology utilizes a One Health approach through multiple strategies, including:
- Education on One Health and how it can be used in various health threats and incorporating informal relationship building into their work.
- Hosting a reportable disease forum, “EpiChat,” for healthcare providers to engage with epidemiologists and other experts to stay informed about key environmental health topics and develop safety and health recommendations for their patients to prevent and control the spread of diseases.
- Collaboration through One Health work groups, both in the state and regionally.
- Including “One Health” in informal job titles to help bring awareness and strategically choosing the term “climate” instead of climate change, extreme weather, etc., in their work.
- Partnering with local community colleges and universities to do joint vector-borne disease projects and provide student education and internships.
- Discussion with stakeholders on how climate affects key industries in Delaware, including their top two industries of tourism and agriculture (poultry).
Leveraging One Health
As we look to the future, climate change and its health-related impacts can't be solved by a single program or policy. A One Health approach by S/THAs is recommended to promote evidence-based partnership to tackle the climate crisis. While challenges exist, small actionable steps like relationship building and cross-sector collaboration, as well as leveraging existing resources, can make huge differences.