One Health: A Comprehensive Approach to Preventing, Detecting and Responding to Health Threats in Europe.

The One Health approach acknowledges the complex relationship between human, animal, and plant health, as well as food safety, climate change, and environmental sustainability. Adopting this approach across various sectors will be critical for enhancing the EU and its Member States’ readiness to prevent, predict, detect, and respond to health threats. By doing so, the impact and societal cost of such threats can be minimized or even prevented altogether. This approach will also help alleviate human pressures on the environment and safeguard essential societal needs like food security and access to clean air and water.

In response to this challenge, a cross-agency task force has been established to implement a joint framework for action over the next three years (2024-2026). The task force will focus on five strategic objectives: strategic coordination, research coordination, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and joint inter-agency activities. Through this initiative, the scientific advice provided by the agencies will become more integrated, the evidence base for One Health will be strengthened, and the agencies can contribute with a united voice to the One Health agenda in Europe.

In November 2023, five EU agencies responsible for providing scientific advice on environmental, public health, and food safety issues released a joint statement expressing their shared commitment to advancing the One Health agenda in Europe. To mark the launch of the joint framework for action, the Executive Directors of these agencies reaffirmed their dedication to this approach in a joint video statement.