Excerpt
This chapter discusses the recent emergence of advocacy for 'One Health' (OH): the
idea that greater interdisiplinarity across the domains of human and animal health
research, clinical practice and policy is essential for addressing contemporary problems
such as zoonotic disease, food safety, cancer and drug development. Over the past
decade, the language of OH has been taken up by increasingly prominent actors in global
health and biomedicine, including funders, international agencies and pharmaceuitcal
companies; however, there has been a long history of veterinary led advocacy for similar
ideas since the late 19th century. This longer history raises an immediate question:
given that ideas of collaboration and convergence between human and veterinary medicine
have been being advanced for such a long time, why has OH come to the fore at this
particular point in time? This chapter analyses the emergence and growth of OH,
following the key actors, events, disciplines, and agendas that have contributed to its
increasing popularity, while tracing its origins in the histories of animal health,
global development, and infectious disease. Using bibliometrics of hey OH terms in
academic journals, alongside qualitative analysis of academic, policy, and online
documents, the analysis shows that while OH has been adopted by institutions across
human and animal health, it is predominantly used by scientists publishing in veterinary
science journals. This raises questions about the extent to which OH is
interdisiplinary, to which actors and in which contexts: to what extent is it a
'top-down' or 'bottom-up; version of interdisciplinarity? The implications of these
findings in the broader context of agenda-building across the life and environmental
sciences of the early 21st century are then discussed.
© Rutgers University Press.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK395883/
