About this course
The One Health concept recognizes that human health, animal health, and ecosystem health are fundamentally linked. While many of these connections are positive and sustain human life, zoonotic diseases and several other health threats demonstrate how our changing interactions with animals and the environment can result in risks and impacts to development outcomes. Recent epidemics and pandemics including COVID-19 highlight the need for improved prevention and preparedness. A One Health approach can help countries to improve their ability to effectively prevent, detect, respond and recover from disease events and prepare for future threats to public health systems at human-animal-environment interfaces. This module provides an overall orientation to One Health in general and within the World Bank. Section 1 examines the definition, context, and need for One Health, including the value addition a One Health approach can provide. The module will look at the impacts of recent emerging and endemic diseases and the drivers of several key disease risks. A visual model showing hypothetical scenarios of early detection and control in animals compared to late-stage epidemic control will be used to demonstrate the cost of inaction. In addition, the module will examine how resource allocation may be improved when considering broader societal benefits from potential investments in one sector related to human, animal, or environmental health. In Section 2 of the module specific examples will be presented that showcase how World Bank projects are putting the One Health approach into action. Section 3 presents the World Bank One Health Operational Framework published in 2018 to support integration of the One Health approach in project identification, preparation, implementation, and completion. This is the sole module of the “Introduction to One Health” e-learning course, and serves as a foundation for a follow-up e-Learning course on “Putting One Health into Practice”.
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The One Health concept recognizes that human health, animal health, and ecosystem health are fundamentally linked. While many of these connections are positive and sustain human life, zoonotic diseases and several other health threats demonstrate how our changing interactions with animals and the environment can result in risks and impacts to development outcomes. Recent epidemics and pandemics including COVID-19 highlight the need for improved prevention and preparedness. A One Health approach can help countries to improve their ability to effectively prevent, detect, respond and recover from disease events and prepare for future threats to public health systems at human-animal-environment interfaces. This module provides an overall orientation to One Health in general and within the World Bank. Section 1 examines the definition, context, and need for One Health, including the value addition a One Health approach can provide. The module will look at the impacts of recent emerging and endemic diseases and the drivers of several key disease risks. A visual model showing hypothetical scenarios of early detection and control in animals compared to late-stage epidemic control will be used to demonstrate the cost of inaction. In addition, the module will examine how resource allocation may be improved when considering broader societal benefits from potential investments in one sector related to human, animal, or environmental health. In Section 2 of the module specific examples will be presented that showcase how World Bank projects are putting the One Health approach into action. Section 3 presents the World Bank One Health Operational Framework published in 2018 to support integration of the One Health approach in project identification, preparation, implementation, and completion. This is the sole module of the “Introduction to One Health” e-learning course, and serves as a foundation for a follow-up e-Learning course on “Putting One Health into Practice”.