One Health: A Ten Thousand Year-Old View into the Future | AlaskaX on edX.org

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www.edx.org/course/one-health...
This course introduces the One Health paradigm with special emphasis on its application in the Circumpolar North. This holistic approach connects knowledge from natural and social sciences with traditional ways of knowing.
The Arctic is experiencing environmental, social, and economic changes at an historically unprecedented rapid rate. This poses great challenges and simultaneously great opportunities to operationalize paradigm shifts supporting adaptation and resilience to these changes and which can then serve as a management model for similar changes that are occurring more gradually on a global scale. Addressing these issues effectively requires a novel approach, integrating knowledge across disciplines and cultures and recognizing the interdependence of human, animal, and environmental health. This concept, always central to the Indigenous worldview, has recently been recognized in Western science as One Health.
One Health was originally developed as a means of understanding how zoonotic diseases, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, arise.
Between 65% and 70% of emerging diseases in humans are of zoonotic origin. The way we impact our environment and how this influences human-animal interactions play a significant role in how these diseases develop and spread.
Health is more than the absence of disease and can be defined as a state of well-being for individuals and their communities. Under this definition, well-being encompasses physical, mental, behavioral, cultural, and spiritual health.
Applying this holistic approach to the One Health paradigm allows us to bring in expertise across natural and social sciences and connect Western science with traditional Indigenous ways of knowing.
Such a broad and deep integration of knowledge and experience provides opportunities for understanding large issues like food safety, security, and sovereignty at their roots, and for engaging stakeholders to build effective solutions.
What You'll Learn:
Have a solid understanding of the One Health concept
Be able to identify how One Health can provide a lens through which to view a variety of challenging situations in human, animal, and environmental health
Explain how the One Health approach can lead to sustainable solutions to critical issues facing communities in the Circumpolar North and beyond
Students will also:
Explain the One Health paradigm, particularly as it relates to the Circumpolar North
Describe the ten thousand-year history of One Health
Explore interrelationships between human, animal, and environmental health
Provide examples of challenges best addressed through the One Health paradigm
Explain why previous approaches to problem-solving have failed
Differentiate between reductionist and constructionist approaches to problem solving and explain why One Health utilizes the constructionist approach
Describe how Traditional ways of knowing and Western science can be used together to understand and manage One Health issues