Abstract
Infectious zoonoses emerge from complex interactions among social and ecological systems. Understanding this complexity requires the accommodation of multiple, often conflicting, perspectives and narratives, rooted in different value systems and temporal–spatial scales. Therefore, to be adaptive, successful and sustainable, One Health approaches necessarily entail conflicts among observers, practitioners and scholars. Nevertheless, these integrative approaches have, both implicitly and explicitly, tended to marginalize some perspectives and prioritize others, resulting in a kind of technocratic tyranny. An important function of One Health approaches should be to facilitate and manage those conflicts, rather than to impose solutions.This article is part of the themed issue ‘One Health for a changing world: zoonoses, ecosystems and human well-being’.
Highlights
Since the 1980s, world health authorities have documented the emergence or re-emergence, and spread, regionally and/or globally, of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs)
Some might argue that EIDs, like many of the other problems we face—changing human demographics, climate change, heterogeneous food shortages and gluts, regional war, species extinctions and loss of biodiversity—are the products of an over-populated, over-consuming world, which itself is an outcome of earlier scientific and technical successes
The stumbling partial successes of many global responses to EIDs can be attributed to the deification of certain biomedical, natural science and organizational narratives, and the marginalization of insights from social sciences and humanities
Summary
Since the 1980s, world health authorities have documented the emergence or re-emergence, and spread, regionally and/or globally, of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). These EIDs, mostly zoonotic or emerging from animal reservoirs and adapting to human transmission, have included Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), some forms of malaria, bacterial food-borne diseases, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Q fever, influenzas (H1N1, H5N1), Ebola, Nipah and West Nile virus disease [1]. Based on what was learned in that initial response, recommendations are made for prevention—usually using the same model which worked well in the emergency phase: the application of top-down technical expertise. For EIDs, these recommendations have tended to focus on better surveillance and vaccine development and delivery [2,3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
