The One World / One Health Concept Applied in the Field, Laboratory, and Hospital

Abstract

New infectious disease outbreaks demand new approaches for control and prevention of disease. The world’s health organizations have adopted the One World/One Health (OWOH) concept to meet this demand. The previous approach was for the health specialist with expertise of the organism or system most effected to attempt to solve the outbreak problem. The aim of OWOH is to go beyond the isolated health specialist approach and open a dialogue to understand the nature of contemporary infectious disease outbreaks. The premise is that if diverse health professionals bring their unique perspectives together, the weak areas of previous approaches would be strengthened, thereby increasing the speed to a solution and reinforcing safeguards against future outbreaks.