Abstract
The practice of one health approaches in human and animal health programmes is influenced by type and scope of bridges and barriers for partnerships. It was thus essential to evaluate the nature and scope of collaborative arrangements among human, animal, and wildlife health experts in dealing with health challenges which demand inter-sectoral partnership. The nature of collaborative arrangement was assessed, and the respective bridges and barriers over a period of 12 months (July 20011 to June 2012) were identified. The specific objectives were to: (1) determine the proportion of health experts who had collaborated with other experts of disciplines different from theirs, (2) rank the general bridges for and barriers against collaboration according to the views of the health experts, and (3) find the actual bridges for and barriers against collaboration among the health experts interviewed. It was found that 27.0% of animal health officers interviewed had collaborated with medical officers while 12.4% of the medical officers interviewed had collaborated with animal health experts. Only 6.7% of the wildlife officers had collaborated with animal health experts. The main bridges for collaboration were instruction by upper level leaders, zoonotic diseases of serious impacts, and availability of funding. The main barriers for collaboration were lack of knowledge about animal/human health issues, lack of networks for collaboration, and lack of plans to collaborate. This thus calls for the need to curb barriers in order to enhance inter-sectoral collaboration for more effective management of risks attributable to infectious diseases of humans and animals.
Highlights
One Health approaches in human and animal health programmes are much desired, and their implementation is enhanced by some factors, it is impeded by other factors
The research from which this article emanated was done with the specific objectives to: (1) determine the proportions of health experts who had collaborated with other experts of disciplines different from theirs, (2) rank the general bridges for and barriers to collaboration according to the views of the health experts, and (3) find the actual bridges for and barriers to collaboration among the health experts interviewed
Besides the general bridges and barriers stated above, which had been compiled before data collection, the respondents were asked about the actual bridges and barriers that impacted on their possible collaboration with health experts in other fields
Summary
One Health approaches in human and animal health programmes are much desired, and their implementation is enhanced by some factors (bridges), it is impeded by other factors (barriers). There is some empirical information on such collaborations; Karimuribo et al (2012) found that sometimes animal and health officers in Ngorongoro District, Tanzania, were sharing vaccine storage facilities, especially during times of disease vaccination campaigns when teams of vaccinators were camping in remote rural areas. Such collaborative activities are undertaken, upscaling the same and undertaking more others is impeded by various barriers. The research from which this article emanated was done with the specific objectives to: (1) determine the proportions of health experts who had collaborated with other experts of disciplines different from theirs, (2) rank the general bridges for and barriers to collaboration according to the views of the health experts, and (3) find the actual bridges for and barriers to collaboration among the health experts interviewed
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