One Health: Insights from Organizational & Social, Technology Assessment and Human Factors Perspectives

Abstract

Objectives: To offer diverse but complementary perspectives on how biomedical and health informatics can be informed by and help to achieve the vision of One Health. Methods: Overview of key considerations and critical discussion of common themes, barriers and opportunities, based on collaborative review by International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) working group members active in related fields. Results: Health and care systems are complex sociotechnical systems that need explicit design and implementation strategies to align with the goals of One Health. The evidence-based health informatics paradigm and associated frameworks for evaluation of digital health technologies need to broaden their scope to take full account of the One Health approach. Informatics has specific contributions to make to One Health, for example by improved user experience reducing energy consumption and effective app design enhancing medication adherence. Conclusions: One Health is inherently intertwined with ergonomic, sociotechnical and evaluation perspectives in biomedical and health informatics. Health is a planetary issue that requires interdisciplinary collaborative action. The theories and principles of biomedical and health informatics offer many opportunities to transform digital health technology to better serve the One Health agenda.