One Health: Health for All and Everything?

When it comes to health, everything is connected. People, animals and the environment must be seen as globally intertwined. This is what the One Health approach posits. It aims to overcome boundaries between both countries and research disciplines so as to gain a holistic understanding of health. There are many reasons to take such a multi-perspective, integrated approach – especially considering current crises: For example, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the danger posed by zoonoses and the importance of global networks. Meanwhile, climate change threatens to dramatically exacerbate negative environmental impacts on health.

But what exactly is One Health? What distinguishes it from Public Health and concepts such as Planetary Health? At its 2023 annual meeting, the German Ethics Council will consider the One Health approach from different perspectives, assess it from an ethical point of view and put it up for critical discussion. The conference will weigh the merits and difficulties the One Health paradigm offers whenused in different fields of ethics, in various areas of application such as zoonoses, nutrition and ecology, as well as in healthcare and policy.

The meeting will focus on the following questions:

• What is new about One Health?
• What benefits and challenges does the approach bring to different fields of ethics – such as medical ethics, animal ethics, environmental ethics and social ethics?
• How does the approach change research in specific areas of application, namely with regard to zoonoses, nutrition and environmental impacts?
• Does a holistic view hinder necessary differentiation in ethics, research and policy?
• What consequences does the approach have for health care practice, research policy, the economy or for the political-legal framework?

Please switch to the German version of this website to see the programme.