title: From 'two medicines' to 'One Health' and beyond.
abstract: We first review historic and conceptual background to integrative thinking in medicine.  Lacking a general theory of 'One Health', we provide an operational definition of 'One Health'  and its leverage as: any added value in terms of human and animal health, financial savings  or environmental benefit from closer cooperation of human and animal health sectors at all  levels of organisation. Examples of such added value of 'One Health' are given from the fields  of health systems, nutrition and zoonoses control in Africa and Asia. 'One Health' must become main-stream rather than a new discipline or new association; it  should just become normal that practitioners and professionals in the health, animal and  environment sectors work together as closely as possible. Current and future challenges  in financing clean energy, migration flows, food security and global trade further warrant  rethinking of human and animal health services. A conceptual outlook relates health as an  outcome of human-environment systems called 'health in social-ecological systems'. The  paper ends with an outlook on the operationalisation of 'One Health' and its future potential,  specifically also in industrialised countries.
authors: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel. jakob.zinsstag@unibas.ch.
authors: Jakob
authors: J
authors: Zinsstag
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Meisser
authors: Esther
authors: E
authors: Schelling
authors: Bassirou
authors: B
authors: Bonfoh
authors: Marcel
authors: M
authors: Tanner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000517:prevention & control; D014943:Global Health; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011634:Public Health; D014730:Veterinary Medicine; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000517:prevention & control