The Need for a One Health Approach to Health Care

Abstract

This article builds on previous research concerning the need for ethics and communication at the expanding human-animal-environment interface. COVID-19 has shown how humans, animals, and the environment are highly inter-connected. Approximately 60% of human infectious diseases in the 20th century originated in animals, and about 75% of new infectious diseases have spread from animals to humans. Although the One Health approach to medicine clearly recognizes the interconnection between people, animals, and the environment, it is also open to criticism. The One Health approach tends to focus exclusively on zoonosis while ignoring the environmental effects caused by huge capital-based development. This article examines the concept of One Health from an ecological level and discusses its achievements, the criticisms that have been raised against it, and the tasks that remain for research based upon it.