A One Health interprofessional intervention between the human health professions and veterinary medical students

One Health has been defined as ‘the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment’ (American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA 2008). Underpinning principles include collaboration, co-operation, co-ordination and integration (AVMA 2008).

Interprofessional education (IPE) has been defined as ‘an intervention where the members of more than one health or social care profession, or both, learn interactively together, for the explicit purpose of improving interprofessional collaboration or the health/wellbeing of patients/clients, or both’ (Reeves et al 2013). Studies have demonstrated that inter-professional education influences attitudes towards other professions, improves knowledge about collaboration, and enhances cooperative behaviour, and there is evidence of the positive effects of IPE on healthcare outcomes (Reeves et al 2013). Although a number of One Health IPE initiatives exist in the United States between students on healthcare professional courses and veterinary medical students, there is an absence of such initiatives in the UK.

There is a potential PhD project that focuses upon the development of an educational intervention designed to enhance the practice of One Health at the community level and teach core values such as community based family health, health promotion, disease prevention and teamwork (i.e. skills that go beyond diagnosis and treatment and include sensitivity to the human animal bond as they relate to social and healthcare issues).