The objective of this forum is to contribute to the development and dissemination, within the academic community, decision-makers and the general public, of a new field of research on the contribution of economics to the One Health public health approach, as advocated by Leandri & Dalmas (2024).
Any contribution to this pressing issue is welcome: it can take the form of an academic analysis, an informed opinion or a naive question, be short or long, as long as it respects the basic formal and ethical requirements of a constructive online debate. Please send you contributions to 1healthecon[at]gmail.com.
In the medium-run, those contributions could serve as a basis for collective publications, both in academic journals and in popularization materials.
Global changes and increased flows of people and goods across the planet are responsible for a significant increase in infectious diseases such as SARS, avian flu, and Ebola in the 21st century (Baker et al., 2022). Up to 60% of current infectious diseases in humans (Jones et al., 2008) are zoonoses. Thus, human and animal health are closely linked in terms of the origin, spread, and burden of these diseases. In response to these threats, the “One Health” paradigm has emerged as a public health strategy aiming to break down barriers between human, animal, and environmental health for the analysis and management of diseases. According to Zinsstag et al. (2022b), it “promotes an integrated, systemic, and unified approach to health at the local, national, and global levels, in order to better anticipate and combat emerging diseases with pandemic risk.” This strategy has been adopted by several major international institutions, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the World Bank, as an effective tool against future pandemics.
The contribution of social sciences and economics in particular to the conceptual and operational foundation of “One Health” has been very limited so far. While many prior contributions to the emergence of the One Health approach have led to analyses integrating multiple dimensions of health, economic analyses explicitly adopting a One Health stance are limited to a few non-specialist contributions and a World Bank report. This highlights the need to gradually build a coherent framework for One Health economics. The evaluation and development of public health policies have long benefited from contributions from economics (Edwards et al., 2013), whether through the direct use of economic methods (cost-benefit analysis, discrete choice experiments) and indicators (QALYs and DALYs) or through the parallel development of the field of health economics. Adapting economic concepts and instruments to the research agenda of One Health thus seems to be an organic and legitimate step in pursuing this collaboration.
This forum aims to reflect the progress of an ongoing research and debates on the construction of this One Health Economics field (articles in progress or submitted, thesis project, upcoming workshops) as well as identify and bring together French and international researchers interested in this emerging theme. Through announcement posts (new publications), progress posts (project milestones completed), perspective posts (profesionnal and researchers’ opinions on directions to explore), and vulgarization posts, this forum would contribute to the formation of an important field for sustainability and global health.
It will provide a platform for actors addressing environmental and health issues, not just economists, who have intuitions on this topic but do not have the time or inclination to write a scientific article with all the constraints that entails.
The forums’s administrator is Marc Leandri, Associate Professor in Environmental and Health Economist at UVSQ-Université Paris Saclay and researcher at UMI SOURCE. You can contact me at marcleandri [at] gmail.com.
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