Global Solutions to Regional Challenges: Bridging the One Health Divide in the Caribbean

Abstract

Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, located on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts in the West Indies, hosted a multi-national, transdisciplinary One Health conference in St. Kitts and Nevis. Historically the many countries of the Caribbean carry a high burden of chronic and infectious disease and struggle with complex economic and developmental issues that continuously pressurize inhabitants and their natural environment. Considering these vast regional challenges, presentations covered diverse topics including community-based approaches for zoonotic disease control and prevention and mitigation of problems at the interface of wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. In two workshops the participants suggested a framework for practicing One Health in the Caribbean that emphasized capacity building and sustainability. Four structural components to the One Health paradigm were discussed including: identification of common problems, the necessity of comprehensive needs assessment, regional mobilization of resources, and building trust among all One Health stakeholders and the public.

Overcoming challenges for designing and implementing the One Health approach: A systematic review of the literature

“…Policy prioritization and funding, and educational and training programs are essential conditions for initiating OH initiatives. The reference numbers follow the notation presented in the Reference list.Conditions for starting Policy and funding [5,[17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46]] Causes and defining arguments Lack of resources and funding for OH initiatives [[18], [19], [20],22,23,30,31,37,39,44,45]OH initiatives need unified and large-scale funding, which is not only hard to acquire but also difficult to coordinate, which lead to the preference for funding disease-specific programs [19,37,44]OH initiatives have to compete for scarce resources with (single) disciplinary and specialized projects [19,22,37,39]Governmental funders prioritize security and economy over health and epidemic preparedness [18,30,31,45]Donors prescribed research agendas generate fragmentation in resource allocation [20,22,44]Donors do not coordinate between themselves neither engage with local governments and health systems, generating inefficient resource allocation [18,23]Lack of overall awareness about OH [5,17,19,21,…”

“…Existing programs are not ideal due to the lack of field training, cross-cultural experiences, and development of managerial and interpersonal skills [46,[49], [50], [51]]…”

“…Lack of publishing networks, and a well-established recognition and rewarding structure for ID/TD research projects [46,47]…”

“…Therefore, addressing condition challenges is considered an important first step towards the successful design and implementation of OH initiatives [2]. Some authors also elaborate on the interdependency of these themes [26,29,[44], [45], [46],53]. While on the one hand, without policy support and funding, educational and training programs cannot be enhanced; on the other hand, educated and trained personnel are necessary for improving and increasing OH advocacy and message development for policy-makers and the public, and therefore enhancing policy support and funding.…”

Checklist for One Health Epidemiological Reporting of Evidence (COHERE)

“…Hence, authors of One Health studies will need to be careful to avoid jargon and to emphasize clarity in communication that can bridge the various disciplines involved in the field. Some One Health expert groups have endorsed involvement of communication specialists in this effort [26] .…”