An Interdisciplinary Approach to One Health: Course Design, Development, and Delivery

Abstract

One Health is an approach to studying health by recognizing the interconnections between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. This article describes the process of designing a new course on One Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The authors brought together faculty and students from across campus to develop a multidisciplinary course dedicated to One Health and infectious diseases. This group met over 9 months to brainstorm course goals, objectives, and ideas. The group also organized a workshop to explore One Health’s existing knowledge and ongoing work on the UIUC campus. The authors solicited the help of experts throughout the university to co-teach the course. The course curriculum and course materials included 13 unique case studies. The course was offered in fall 2019, and its goals were to add to the existing training and coursework on One Health at the University of Illinois campus, offer a course that would be suitable for students from all fields of study, and develop helpful case studies to be made available to other educators. Student feedback highlights the course’s successes as well as areas for future improvement. This article describes this entire process of course development, provides recommendations to guide improvements in the next offering of the course, and details our contributions to the field of One Health education.