One health approach represents a conjoint effort based on the idea that people, animals and plants are part of the same system, which implies there is
a unique health for humans, animals and the environment that can be described as a circular and integrated system. Such an approach involves several professional disciplines such as human and veterinary medicine, agri-food sector, environment, research and communication, economics and others that operate on a local, national and global level. In other words, interdisciplinarity, sustainability, and interdependence are the keywords of the circular health model.
Indeed, there are not only individuals and communities that have to be preserved, but also the health of the planet as a whole. The holistic vision of
One Health represents a model to protect and promote the health of populations based on the integration of human biology, the environment, lifestyle and health organizations. Such an integration and interconnection in nature is perfectly exemplified by microbes: indeed, they represent the connecting links between apparently separate worlds: human health, animal health, and the healthiness of the environment.
The perfect illustration of this intrinsic connection between human, animal, and ecosystem health was the coronavirus pandemic that society has been experiencing over the last 3 years. The coronavirus pandemic showed how human activities – such as changes in land use, agriculture and intensive farming, trade and consumption of wild animals – cause a loss of biodiversity.
Science is an essential ingredient of this approach, precisely, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Big data and AI can offer us in constantly monitoring environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity, knowing, for instance, that vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue increase with an increase in these two variables. With the analysis of big data, we can then measure the level of fine dust, the UV index, the presence of pollen, the strength of hurricanes, the warming of the sea and the melting of glaciers. In additional to that, the management of large amounts of individual and collective data through sophisticated statistical analysis systems and with the help of supercomputers, can prove to be useful in the decision-making process in the fields of diagnosis, clinical therapy, and public health, as well as in the areas of surveillance, reorganization of interventions and medical-surgical services, monitoring and management of patients.
In conclusion, the “One Health” is a vital initiative for today’s world, which goes beyond the purely biomedical conception of health and can therefore
be represented as a sphere in which each component integrates with the others and the factors for reducing some risks created by humans. For that reason we need a new way of thinking and acting in international cooperation to improve the levels of coordination, cooperation, and integration of the measures to be undertaken in every social sphere: from agriculture to science, from education to politics, from information to economics, with the ultimate and sole purpose of promoting development and protecting and improving individual and collective health.
