GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT
From a strict biological point of view, humans are just one species among other species, albeit
one with very special capacities, characteristics, and skills. Among scientists, it is generally
acknowledged that we share many features with other animal species, which are certainly
relevant when the concepts of health and disease are discussed. The term ‘One Health’ is used in
many different contexts and by people with varying backgrounds. However, there appears to be
some confusion as to what the term really means, and it is used in a wide range of contexts, often
including or bordering concepts such as infection biology, contagious diseases, zoonotic
infections, evolutionary medicine, comparative medicine, and translational medicine. Without
claiming to present the one and only true interpretation, we will argue for a wide approach
using the ‘umbrella’ depiction developed by One Health Sweden. We argue that this one should,
compared to other demarcations, be more useful to science. We will also analyze the concept of
health on different levels: individual, population, and ecosystem health, and describe how these
levels inherently influence each other for both humans and animals. Both these choices are
normative and have practical consequences for research and education, a way of reasoning
which we develop further in this paper. Finally, we conclude that the choice of term for the
approach might be normative in deciding which disciplines or parts of disciplines that may be
included.
KEYWORDS: Health, Definition, One Health, Concept, Implications for Practice