Co-production of knowledge as part of a OneHealth approach to better control zoonotic diseases

Abstract

There is increased global and national attention on the need for effective strategies to control zoonotic diseases. Quick, effective action is, however, hampered by poor evidence-bases and limited coordination between stakeholders from relevant sectors such as public and animal health, wildlife and forestry sectors at different scales, who may not usually work together. The OneHealth approach recognises the value of cross-sectoral evaluation of human, animal and environmental health questions in an integrated, holistic and transdisciplinary manner to reduce disease impacts and/or mitigate risks. Co-production of knowledge is also widely advocated to improve the quality and acceptability of decision-making across sectors and may be particularly important when it comes to zoonoses. This paper brings together OneHealth and knowledge co-production and reflects on lessons learned for future OneHealth co-production processes by describing a process implemented to understand spill-over and identify disease control and mitigation strategies for a zoonotic disease in Southern India (Kyasanur Forest Disease). The co-production process aimed to develop a joint decision-support tool with stakeholders, and we complemented our approach with a simple retrospective theory of change on researcher expectations of the system-level outcomes of the co-production process. Our results highlight that while co-production in OneHealth is a difficult and resource intensive process, requiring regular iterative adjustments and flexibility, the beneficial outcomes justify its adoption. A key future aim should be to improve and evaluate the degree of inter-sectoral collaboration required to achieve the aims of OneHealth. We conclude by providing guidelines based on our experience to help funders and decision-makers support future co-production processes.