Today, accredited zoos are not just places for entertainment, they are actively involved in research for conservation and health. During recent decades in which the challenges for biodiversity conservation and public health have escalated, zoos have made significant changes to address these difficulties. Zoos increasingly have four key areas of focus: education, recreation, conservation, and research. These key areas are important in addressing an interrelated global conservation (i.e. habitat and wildlife loss) and public health crisis. Zoo and public health professionals working together within a One Health framework represent a powerful alliance to address current and future conservation and public health problems around the world. For researchers, practitioners, and students, the collaboration between zoos and public health institutions offers the opportunity to both teach and operationalize this transdisciplinary approach. Using examples from our programs, we give a template for moving forward with collaborative initiatives and sustainable solutions involving partners in both zoos and public health institutions. We provide examples of cooperative programs and suggest a model for consideration in the development of further activities in this area.

Societal expectations of self-care and responsible actions toward others may produce bias against those who engage in perceived self-harming behavior. This is especially true for health professionals, who have dedicated themselves to helping reduce the burden of illness and suffering. Research has shown that writing narratives can increase perspective taking and empathy toward other people, which may engender more positive attitudes. Two studies examined whether creating a fictional narrative about a woman who smokes cigarettes while pregnant could increase positive attitudes toward the woman who smokes and reduce the internal attributions made for her behavior. Across both experiments, the narrative writing intervention increased participants’ empathy and perspective taking, evoked more positive attitudes toward a woman who smokes cigarettes while pregnant, and increased external attributions for her behavior. This work supports our hypothesis that narrative writing would be an efficacious intervention promoting attitude change toward patients who engage in unhealthy, and often contentious, behaviors. This work also suggests that narrative writing could be a useful intervention for medical professionals and policy makers leading to more informed policy or treatment recommendations, encouraging empathy for patients, and engendering a stronger consideration of how external forces can play a role in someone’s seemingly irresponsible behavior.

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