Mary Paul, Mridula and Pradhan, Sunita and Chettri, Aarti and Khaling, Sarala and Vanak, Abi Tamim (2024) Putting one health to the test: Operational challenges and critical reflections from the global South. One Health, 20.

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Abstract

One Health as a policy framework to tackle zoonoses has gained wide-ranging validation with multiple international organizations throwing their collective might behind it.Such endorsement has convinced several governments to adopt One Health as a national strategy to address zoonoses. Although some argue that One Health is so many things that there are in fact multiple ‘One Healths’, others find that most international policy documents that use the One Health framing contain certain key recommendations, with intersectoral coordination and disease surveillance prominent among them. In this paper we examine whether and how One Health travels in a sub-national setting in a developing country context such as that of India, with particular focus on intersectoral coordination. We draw on documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews, and workshops with government officials across key sectoral agencies at the district level, to understand prevalent institutional mechanisms in place to address zoonoses in such a setting. We locate our study in the district of Gyalshing in the state of Sikkim in India, which is a potential zoonoses ‘hotspot’ given its location within the biodiverse Indian Himalayan Region, with numerous avenues for human-animal interactions, and burgeoning human population linked to its tourism-run economy. We outline successful cases where certain zoonotic diseases could be tackled, while also highlighting structural constraints that need to be borne in mind while planning or advocating One Health as a blanket policy prescription. In doing so, we draw attention to the political dimensions of global health policies, and question whether One Health can be uncritically deployed in developing country contexts.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Copyright of this article belongs to 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
Uncontrolled Keywords: One health, Zoonoses, Health policy, Structural violence of policies
Subjects: A ATREE Publications > G Journal Papers
Divisions: SM Sehgal Foundation Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation > Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Planning
Depositing User: Ms Suchithra R
Date Deposited: 25 Nov 2025 08:34
Last Modified: 02 Dec 2025 10:03
URI: http://archives.atree.org/id/eprint/922

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