International Journal of One Health, EISSN: 2455-8931 83 International Journal of One Health Available at www.onehealthjournal.org/Vol.6/No.1/14.pdf REVIEW ARTICLE Open Access A review of the One Health concept and its application as a tool for policy-makers Rodrigo de Macedo Couto 1 and Daniel Friguglietti Brandespim 2 1. Department of Epidemiology, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, 04024-002, Brazil; 2. Departament of Veterinary Medicine, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (UFRPE), Recife/PE, 52171-900, Brazil. Corresponding author: Rodrigo de Macedo Couto, e-mail: rodrigoscouto@hotmail.com Co-author: DFB: danielbrandespim@gmail.com Received: 22-02-2020, Accepted: 15-05-2020, Published online: 24-06-2020 doi: www.doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2020.83-89 How to cite this article: de Macedo Couto R, Brandespim DF (2020) A review of the One Health concept and its application as a tool for policy-makers, Int. J. One Health, 6(1): 83-89. Abstract The One Health concept represents the inseparability of human, animal, and environmental health through a unified view of health care. This article addressed the topic of public health policies from the One Health perspective, demonstrating its inclusion in various health agendas such as emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, basic sanitation, mental health, chronic non-communicable diseases, interpersonal violence, and food safety. The results showed that the application of the One Health concept to the development and implementation of policies is associated with a growing need to involve transdisciplinary teams for solving complex problems to improve communication and to ensure the relevance and acceptability of public policies, thus guaranteeing governance. According to the principle of efficiency, the government must be aware of the evolution of technical knowledge and should use the One Health approach to improve the efficacy of already existing systems. We, therefore, conducted this review to contextualize current knowledge in this topic which is becoming an essential tool for public health policy-makers and practitioners around the world promoting a reflection on the importance of multiprofessional articulation in the implementation of intersectoral public health policies. Keywords: One Health, public administration, public health, public health policies, sustainability. Introduction Across the globe, we experience the rapid move- ment of individuals and products, an increasing demand for protein sources, habitat destruction, increased con- tact between humans and animals, climate change, and growing antimicrobial resistance, among other chal- lenges that directly or indirectly influence health [1]. In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations launched an initiative called “One World, One Health,” in which the term “One Health” was a concept suggested to demonstrate the inseparability of human, animal, and environmental health [2]. In addi- tion, the United Nations recently stressed that inter- sectoral and multidisciplinary measures and a unified view of health care are critical to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [3]. Few public health policies comprise all pillars of the One Health approach to prevent diseases and to protect and promote health by joining efforts from different sectors through multidisciplinary collabora- tion and by recognizing the interdependence between the different components of the human/animal/envi- ronment triad. Little importance is given to the insti- tutional, political, and social factors associated with the implementation of these public policies within the One Health approach [4]. In view of the new challenges of the millennium, this article aims to address a review of the One Health concept, which is becoming an essential knowledge tool for public health policy-makers who seek strate- gies for more efficient public administration and bet- ter governance. Concept and Foundations of One Health One Health is a scientifically established and val- idated concept of great social importance that initially emerged from the integrated study of zoonoses [4,5]. It currently encompasses the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health in a multi- disciplinary approach represented by a complex bio- logical and social system, which involves multiple actors and processes and their interactions overtime at the local, national, and global level [6]. Figure-1 sum- marizes the main findings of the One Health concept as the fundamental basis for society’s health problems. The Impact of the Environment on Health The quality of life of populations and their health depend on an ecologically balanced environment. The lack of basic sanitation in conjunction with rainfall, floods, urban waste, and a high population density generates large contingents vulnerable to endemic infectious and parasitic diseases [7]. A national policy Copyright: Couto and Brandespim. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. 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