One Health is the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the environment.
The Center for One Health Illinois focuses on fostering human, animal, and ecosystem health through the three broadly defined areas of education, research, and public outreach:
Key to the Center for One Health Illinois is the DVM-MPH joint degree program, which enrolled its first students in 2005 in conjunction with the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Within the program’s first decade, 40 students had either completed both degrees or were enrolled in the program.
Other educational opportunities for students include:
Through the Center for One Health Illinois, researchers working in diverse biomedical disciplines agree to jointly train their graduate students in One Health concepts.
The center funds research by DVM-MPH students completing the capstone project required for the MPH degree. Funding is awarded on the basis of scientific merit of projects with strong animal, ecosystem, and human health components.
A list of capstone projects and publications can be found on the DVM-MPH site.
Outreach is an important component of the mission of the Center for One Health Illinois. The center facilitates communication among experts in human health, animal welfare, and ecosystem health.
Past projects include:
The Center for One Health Illinois steering committee consists of:
The college hosted a colloquium entitled “One Medicine: The Interface of Human, Animal and Public Health,” which laid the foundation for the center. Participants represented a variety of institutions, including the School of Public Health at University of Illinois-Chicago, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, the University of California-Davis, the University of Pennsylvania, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and members of federal legislative staffs.
Faculty members from a number of departments on the Chicago and Urbana campuses attended. University President B. Joseph White delivered the keynote address, and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin participated via videoconference from Washington, D.C.
This year the college also identified among its top five priorities the establishment of “the University of Illinois Center for One Medicine” in order to “build capacity in environmental health, conservation medicine, and infectious diseases with a focus on direct application to public policy and public health.”
Federal funds of $220,000 were authorized to assist in launching the Center for One Health Illinois.
The first One Health Illinois summit was held in February 2010 and convened invited experts from academia, government, and the private sector to assess the health of human, animal, and ecosystem communities in Illinois and to direct the future plans of the center.
An additional $465,000 in federal funding was authorized in 2010.
In August, the Center for One Health hosted a daylong workshop entitled, Tools for Integrated One Health Surveillance, that brought together experts from academia, state public health agencies, and private industry to discuss tools for an integrated surveillance system in Illinois.
On August 1, the center held its second One Health Illinois Summit. Experts from academia, government, and the private sector presented updates on and discussed the current health of Illinois human, animal and ecosystem communities; efforts to develop an integrated health surveillance system; current and recent One Health research projects; trends regarding zoonotic and infectious diseases; and current and potential health policy initiatives.
Since graduating, Dr. Heather Venkat (DVM ’13, MPH ’14, DACVPM ’18) has been able to apply crucial skills in veterinary medicine, public health, and epidemiology towards disease surveillance, outbreak preparedness and response, data analysis, and education and outreach. She obtained her DVM from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013 and Master’s in Public...
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