Advancing the One Health Paradigm Shift: Updates and Challenges

In recent days Ebola has and is giving the world an important One Health lesson. Ecologists have repeatedly pointed out that human impact on the environment (via deforestation, development, etc.) is bringing people and wildlife into ever increasing contact as evidenced by Nipah, SARS and now Ebola virus outbreaks. Additionally, the world must discover how to feed the projected 9 billion people that will soon populate it without causing further global destruction. This requires conjoined, sustained and simultaneous attention to many arenas such as: soil and plant health, antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, secure social, economic and political systems,  advances in comparative research and education, to name only a few. The cross disciplinary approach known as One Health really is a "ray of hope" for the future, our only way forward. Continuing in our current status quo ‘silo’ systems will not sustain us but will further us along a destructive trajectory. This presentation will describe several areas of One Health, the critical need for and process of connecting the many passionate One Health stakeholders, and share an update on One Health efforts across the U.S. and beyond, bringing us together in organized actions needed to make One Health ways of thinking the ‘default way of doing business’. It is up to us, as One Health stakeholders and leaders from all disciplines, to make it happen.