“Health in” and “Health of” Social-Ecological Systems: A Practical Framework for the Management of Healthy and Resilient Agricultural and Natural Ecosystems

Abstract

The past two decades have seen an accumulation of theoretical and empirical evidence for the interlinkages between human health and well-being, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and agriculture. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the devastating impacts that an emerging pathogen, of animal origin, can have on human societies and economies. A number of scholars have called for the wider adoption of “One Health integrated approaches” to better prevent, and respond to, the threats of emerging zoonotic diseases. However, there are theoretical and practical challenges that have precluded the full development and practical implementation of this approach. Whilst integrated approaches to health are increasingly adopting a social-ecological system framework (SES), the lack of clarity in framing the key concept of resilience in health contexts remains a major barrier to its implementation by scientists and practitioners. We propose an operational framework, based on a transdisciplinary definition of Socio-Ecological System Health (SESH) that explicitly links health and ecosystem management with the resilience of SES, and the adaptive capacity of the actors and agents within SES, to prevent and cope with emerging health and environmental risks. We focus on agricultural transitions that play a critical role in disease emergence and biodiversity conservation, to illustrate the proposed participatory framework to frame and co-design SESH interventions. Finally, we highlight critical changes that are needed from researchers, policy makers and donors, in order to engage communities and other stakeholders involved in the management of their own health and that of the underpinning ecosystems.

Chlamydia Psittaci ST24: Clonal Strains of One Health Importance Dominate in Australian Horse, Bird and Human Infections

“…The trans-disciplinary benefits of a One Health approach to investigate the epidemiology of C. psittaci will improve our understanding and management of risk, not just for this disease agent but for zoonoses more broadly. There are additional benefits to landscape ecosystem health [ 42 ] and to local capacity to manage threats at the animal–human–wildlife–environment interface [ 43 ].…”

Getting out of crises: Environmental, social-ecological and evolutionary research is needed to avoid future risks of pandemics

“…A social-ecological system can be defined as an ecological system (composed of independent biological units in interactions) intricately linked with and affected by one or more social systems ( Anderies et al, 2004 , Ostrom, 2009 , Colding and Barthel, 2019 ). Clearly, EIDs, public and animal health, social responses and governance could be analyzed using a social-ecological health framework, as recently advocated by De Garine-Wichatitsky et al (2021) . A better approach to social-ecological systems needs to improve assessment of (i) “the biophysical environment”, including land productivity, soil erosion, climate factors, or biodiversity; (ii) “the socioecosystem”, comprising land use management and economic development pathways; and (iii) “governance”, referring to rights (access and uses), justice and laws (e.g., environmental law, health law) ( Ebbesson and Hey, 2013 ).…”

Outbreaks of Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases Are Associated With Changes in Forest Cover and Oil Palm Expansion at Global Scale

“…Several other factors are potential drivers of emergence or of epidemics of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases such as livestock (2,53), pets (54-57) and trade (58). The fact that many factors play important role in the emergence and epidemics calls for the development of more integrative research (59)(60)(61).…”