Developing a Global One Health Workforce: The “Rx One Health Summer Institute” Approach

Abstract

The One Health approach has gained support across a range of disciplines; however, training opportunities for professionals seeking to operationalize the interdisciplinary approach are limited. Academic institutions, through the development of high-quality, experiential training programs that focus on the application of professional competencies, can increase accessibility to One Health education. The Rx One Health Summer Institute, jointly led by US and East African partners, provides a model for such a program. In 2017, 21 participants representing five countries completed the Rx One Health program in East Africa. Participants worked collaboratively with communities neighboring wildlife areas to better understand issues impacting human and animal health and welfare, livelihoods, and conservation. One Health topics were explored through community engagement and role-playing exercises, field-based health surveillance activities, laboratories, and discussions with local experts. Educational assessments reflected improvements in participants' ability to apply the One Health approach to health and disease problem solving, as well as anticipate cross-sectoral challenges to its implementation. The experiential learning method, specifically the opportunity to engage with local communities, proved to be impactful on participants' cultural awareness. The Rx One Health Summer Institute training model may provide an effective and implementable strategy by which to contribute to the development of a global One Health workforce.

Survey of One Health programs in U.S. medical schools and development of a novel one health elective for medical students

“…Few medical schools offer OH training programs that are truly interdisciplinary [ 16 , 17 ]. However, increasing accessibility to OH education can be achieved through high-quality experiential training programs that apply OH core competencies [ 9 , 14 , 15 ] and collaborative problem solving with diverse participants [ 23 , 24 ]. Mor et al described a successful OH experiential training experience for veterinary students using a local parklands area as the backdrop for OH scenarios [ 25 ].…”

Assessment of One Health Knowledge, Animal Welfare Implications, and Emergency Preparedness Considerations for Effective Public Health Response

“…A recent study reported that application-based trainings were highly effective for learning implementation of One Health while building a stronger public health workforce capacity. 23 Veterinarians with human health professions have an opportunity to raise awareness and hold a collaborative training forum on these animal welfare, One Health, and One Welfare topics at various continuing education venues (eg, American Public Health Association annual meeting, annual USPHS Scientific and Training Symposium). In addition, considerations for pets can be addressed during emergency preparedness planning as documented in the literature 10 or in emergency response policies, as USPHS officers had reported doing.…”

Employment status of AFROHUN-Uganda one health alumni, and facilitators and barriers to application of the one health approach: a tracer study

“…The in-depth interview guide elicited information on what makes it possible for the employee’s organisation to apply a multidisciplinary approach in solving day to day programmatic challenges, whether the employee’s organisational culture supports a multi-disciplinary approach to solving day to day challenges, steps taken by the employee’s organisation to promote the one health approach, and what makes it difficult to promote a multidisciplinary approach to solving health challenges in the employee’s workplace. The questions contained in the in-depth interview guide were developed after a critical review of literature on barriers and facilitators of effective implementation of the one health approach [ 27 , 40 – 42 ]. After the development of the interview guide, it was pretested among 4 AFROHUN alumni of the 2019 cohort to ensure that the questions were clear and well-understood prior to the main data collection phase.…”

“…Given the role of the OH approach in solving global health challenges, academic institutions and OH-oriented networks continue to develop curricula that aim to empower pre-and in-service professionals with OH-related knowledge, skills and competencies [ 24 – 27 ]. With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), AFROHUN, which is a network of 27 institutions of veterinary and public health in the East, Central and West African region is currently championing the development of the OH workforce in ten African countries, including Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Tanzania, Cameroon, Liberia, and Senegal.…”