Round table

Infectious disease outbreaks – especially zoonotic disease outbreaks triggered when pathogens spread from animals to people – remain serious health concerns worldwide and provide an excellent example of One Health.... [ view full abstract ]

Infectious disease outbreaks – especially zoonotic disease outbreaks triggered when pathogens spread from animals to people – remain serious health concerns worldwide and provide an excellent example of One Health. According to Wolfe et al. (2007), the most significant diseases of modern society have animal origins. Zoonotic disease emergence is the result of biological processes mediated by both ecologic and socio-cultural factors, because the transmission of diseases from animals to humans depend on how people interact with both domestic and wild animals. Social and cultural diversity, like ecological diversity, plays an important role in the emergence and transmission of zoonotic diseases. While exposure to zoonosis as well as risk of transmission at the individual and community level is conditioned by the type of animal and the environment in which interactions occur, all of this is mediated by human activity.

Human population is expected to increase by 50% by the year 2050. This growth will challenge food production systems, ecosystem services, and biodiversity conservation. These changes pose significant risk to human health and societal security. A human dimensions social science driven approach considers the social and policy-level determinants that influence emergence and transmission of zoonoses and the probable effectiveness of various interventions. This includes broad-scale changes occurring globally as a result of such forces as population growth and expansion, economic development, urbanization, technological advancement, climate change and energy and resource exploration. Such changes, for example, have led to greater pressure on wildlife and other natural resources by contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, changes in the composition of plant and animal populations, and an acceleration of human-wildlife conflict.

In the complex mix of forces that increasingly shape the nature and distribution of zoonotic disease-related events, human behavior can exert a powerful influence. In this roundtable, a diverse group of social scientists will explore the social and cultural divers and behavioral context of disease emergence and transmission as well as the culture and politics of wildlife management and how all of these factors contribute to a better understanding of the socio-cultural, political, and economic dimensions ONE Health.