Strengthening the One Health Approach to Emerging Pandemic Threats through University Partnerships: Examples from Africa and Southeast Asia

Purpose: Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases warrant global attention because although they might originate in a country, the implications extend beyond borders. Effective response to these pandemic threats requires a “One Health” approach, which is the collaborative engagement of human, animal, and environmental health professionals working in communities, academia, and government. A range of successes have been documented yet a need remains for full integration of One Health in academia that extends into real world settings.

Method: To address this gap, University of Minnesota faculty (Nursing, Vet Medicine, Public Health, Ecology, Medicine, Education) have engaged in bi-directional learning partnerships with universities in East Africa, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia to strengthen adoption of a One Health approach within and academic settings. This University-based approach has potential to positively influence the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of future health and environmental professionals—today's students are tomorrow's workforce.

Results: These bi-directional learning partnerships have brought University of Minnesota faculty alongside colleagues at Universities in several infectious disease hot spots across African and Southeast Asia: Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. These relationships have yielded innovative cross-disciplinary approaches to educating students (i.e., nurse-vet joint residency programs), developing official curricula (i.e. nurses, community health workers), and integrating practice-government-academia activities.

Recommendations: University partnerships are foundational to advancing an effective One Health approach because they are preparing future generations of providers and researchers who will be among the first to identify, predict, and respond to emerging threats.