WG Leaders : Dr Simon Ruegg (Switzerland) and Prof Jakob Zinsstag (Switzerland)
One Health addresses health challenges arising from the intertwined spheres of humans, animals and ecosystems. WG1 has developed a science-based framework to systematically evaluate One Health, taking into account the various disciplinary perspectives and resulting complexity. Over four years, 54 specialists from various fields have gathered and condensed their knowledge in an iterative process of drafting, discussing, testing and improving. This was in close collaboration with WG2 who tested the materials on case studies. Many very focussed and intense Short Term Scientific Missions were conducted to elaborate the tricky parts of the framework. We applied a systems approach to develop a systems approach for evaluation of One Health and are proud to deliver an open access handbook with evaluation tools.
The NEOH handbook is intended for practitioners, researchers, evaluators as well as funders of integrated approaches to health and beyond. The handbook provides science-based guidance for the evaluation of One Health and other integrated approaches to health. It leads the reader through a systems approach and framework to evaluate such approaches in a standardised way. It provides an overview of concepts and metrics from health and life sciences, social sciences, economics, and ecology that are relevant for the evaluation of the processes involved, as well as the characterisation of expected and unexpected outcomes of One Health initiatives. Finally, the handbook provides guidance and practical protocols to help plan and implement evaluations in order to generate new insights and provide meaningful information about the value of One Health.
A summary of the handbook can be found here.
The handbook can be downloaded for free here.