Advancing One Health in the United States
Spotlight
The first ever National One Health Framework to Address Zoonotic Diseases and Advance Public Health Preparedness in the United States includes a common vision, mission, and goals for key federal partners involved in implementing the One Health approach to protect people, animals, and our shared environment from zoonotic diseases and other One Health threats.
National One Health Framework to Address Zoonotic Diseases and Advance Public Health Preparedness in the United States
In both the 2021 House Appropriations Committee Report and the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress directed CDC to collaborate with USDA, DOI, and other federal agencies partners to create a National One Health Framework to Address Zoonotic Diseases and Advance Public Health Preparedness in the United States (NOHF-Zoonoses).
- The NOHF-Zoonoses will inform One Health collaboration across the U.S. government for the next 5 years, describing a common vision, mission, and goals for key federal partners involved in implementing the One Health approach to protect people, animals, and our shared environment from zoonotic diseases and other One Health threats within the United States.
- The framework establishes goals and objectives to strengthen coordinated federal activities in the United States and better prepare for the next potential threat.
U.S. One Health Coordination Unit
The Act also directed CDC to collaborate with interagency partners on the development of a One Health coordination mechanism at the federal level to strengthen One Health collaboration related to prevention, detection, control, and response for zoonotic diseases and related One Health work across the federal government. As a result of this directive, the U.S. One Health Coordination Unit (U.S. OHCU) was launched in January 2024. The U.S. OHCU is built on shared interagency leadership from CDC, Department of the Interior (DOI) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and brings together 24 agencies to enhance collaboration that benefits human, animal, plants and environment health through activities such as promoting health, enhancing health-sustaining resources, emergency preparedness, and the prevention, detection, and response to zoonotic diseases.
Addressing Priority Zoonotic Diseases of National Concern
In 2017, CDC, USDA, and DOI organized a One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization (OHZDP) workshop to further joint efforts to address zoonotic disease challenges in the United States. Participants in the workshop identified eight zoonotic diseases of greatest national concern:
- Zoonotic influenza
- Salmonellosis
- West Nile
- Plague
- Emerging coronaviruses (such as SARS and MERS, and as of 2020, COVID-19)
- Rabies
- Brucellosis
- Lyme disease
After this workshop, CDC created the One Health Federal Interagency Network (OH-FIN) to bring together experts from key federal agencies representing multiple departments to exchange information, updates, and opportunities for collaboration in support of One Health across the federal government.
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