title: Practice of One Health approaches: bridges and barriers in Tanzania.
abstract: The practice of one health approaches in human and animal health programmes is influenced by type and scope of bridges and barriers for partnerships. It was thus essential to evaluate the nature and scope of collaborative arrangements among human, animal, and wildlife health experts in dealing with health challenges which demand inter-sectoral partnership. The nature of collaborative arrangement was assessed, and the respective bridges and barriers over a period of 12 months (July 20011 to June 2012) were identified. The specific objectives were to: (1) determine the proportion of health experts who had collaborated with other experts of disciplines different from theirs, (2) rank the general bridges for and barriers against collaboration according to the views of the health experts, and (3) find the actual bridges for and barriers against collaboration among the health experts interviewed. It was found that 27.0% of animal health officers interviewed had collaborated with medical officers while 12.4% of the medical officers interviewed had collaborated with animal health experts. Only 6.7% of the wildlife officers had collaborated with animal health experts. The main bridges for collaboration were instruction by upper level leaders, zoonotic diseases of serious impacts, and availability of funding. The main barriers for collaboration were lack of knowledge about animal/human health issues, lack of networks for collaboration, and lack of plans to collaborate. This thus calls for the need to curb barriers in order to enhance inter-sectoral collaboration for more effective management of risks attributable to infectious diseases of humans and animals.
authors.affiliation: Rural Development, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in One Health Policy, Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS). kimkayunze@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Kim A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Kayunze
authors.forename: Angwara
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kiwara
authors.forename: Eligius
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lyamuya
authors.forename: Dominic M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Kambarage
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rushton
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Coker
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kock
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D011634:Public Health; D013636:Tanzania; D014730:Veterinary Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000517:prevention & control