Operationalizing One Health: Environmental Solutions for Pandemic Prevention

Abstract

Human pressure on the environment is increasing the frequency, diversity, and spatial extent of disease outbreaks. Despite international recognition, the interconnection between the health of the environment, animals, and humans has been historically overlooked. Past and current initiatives have often neglected prevention under the One Health preparedness cycle, largely focusing on post-spillover stages. We argue that pandemic prevention initiatives have yet to produce actionable targets and indicators, connected to overarching goals, like it has been done for biodiversity loss and climate change. We show how the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework, already employed by the Convention on Biological Diversity, can be repurposed to operationalize pandemic prevention. Global responses for pandemic prevention should strive for complementarity and synergies among initiatives, better articulating prevention under One Health. Without agreed-upon goals underpinning specific targets and interventions, current global efforts are unlikely to function at the speed and scale necessary to decrease the risk of disease outbreaks that might lead to pandemics. Threats to the environment are not always abatable, but decreasing the likelihood that environmental pressure leads to pandemics, and developing strategies to mitigate these impacts, are both attainable goals.

Early-stage loss of ecological integrity drives the risk of zoonotic disease emergence

“…The relationship found between human footprint and EID risk supports the Framework's objectives and emphasizes the need for integrated efforts to safeguard both ecosystem integrity and public health in the face of global environmental changes. Future research should continue to explore the complex connections between biodiversity conservation, ecological integrity and disease risk, providing a robust empirical foundation for the effective implementation of the Framework's goals [17].…”

“…The Framework also recognizes the value of nature in reducing disease risk, in Target 11: ‘Restore, maintain and enhance nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, such as […] reduction of disease risk…’. We argue that these two target elements have the potential to generate important synergies in the implementation of the Framework [16] and its relationship with the broader 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda [17], but the relationship between ecological integrity and disease risk reduction needs to be tested empirically. A comprehensive large-scale test of these effects has not been performed yet, as large-scale modelling exercises have mostly focused on species richness and ignored ecological integrity and other aspects of biodiversity [3,5].…”