the One Health approach. However, this area needs to be expanded and could be helped by a transdisciplinary merging of scientists from, for example, philosophy of medicine, sociology, animal welfare research, plant science and ecosystem science.
Summary
This chapter analyses the concept of One Health and focuses on the two words in the concept with the aim to better explain what the terms ‘one’ and ‘health’ refer to. First, making a distinction between the usage of the terms ‘One Health approaches’, which refers to all appraoches with a multispecies and multi- or interdisciplinary scope, and ‘One Health’, which refers to a specific kind of approach being made. Second, the One Health definition set forth in this book was compared to three other definitions of One Health, and pros and cons were identified. Additionally, the meaning of ‘one’ was discussed, showing the need for an interdisciplinary approach. Finally, the meaning of ‘health’ was shown to be complex, both regarding which definition of health to choose and on which level (individual, population or ecosystem) to apply it. A non-speciesist definition of health is needed, which could be either a bottom-up or top-down definition. Further discussions within the One Health approaches are needed.
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6 Transdisciplinary Research and One Health
MÓNICA BERGER-GONZÁLEZ,1,2,3* KRISTINA PELIKAN,1,2 JAKOB ZINSSTAG,1,2 SEID MOHAMED ALI1,2,4 AND ESTHER SCHELLING5
1 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland; 2 University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; 3 Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala City, Guatemala; 4 University of Jigjiga, Jigjiga, Ethiopia; 5 Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Suisse, Bern, Switzerland
Introduction
One Health raises questions beyond the narrow view of health improvements based on medical interventions: its activities need to be understood
