Social Sciences in One Health: Insights From Multiple Worlds Perspectives on the Dam Rupture in Brumadinho-Brazil

Abstract

Concepts that integrate human, animal, and ecosystem health - such as One Health (OH) - have been highlighted in recent years and mobilized in transdisciplinary approaches. However, there is a lack of input from the social sciences in OH discussions. This is a gap to overcome, including in Latin America. Therefore, this paper incorporates recent studies from economics and anthropology to the debate, contributing to the opening of transdisciplinary dialogues for the elaboration of OH theory and practice. As a starting point, we explore the recent case of a tailings dam breach, making considerations about how and why this event was experienced in different ways by the affected Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds. From economics, we show how different theories perceive and impact these different worlds, presenting some existing alternatives to the hegemonic thinking of domination and exploitation. From anthropology, we present the perspectivism concept, deriving from the field of relational ontologies, suggesting there are significant and inevitable disagreements-equivocations-among different worlds. Thus, we discuss how the social sciences can help address challenging factors that need to be considered in health approaches that intend to deal with complex global problems. In conclusion, OH should incorporate social science discussions, considering relating practice to the multiple realities in which a particular problem or conflict is inserted. Overcoming the barriers that hinder transdisciplinary dialogue is fundamental and urgent for an effective approach to the multiple and distinct interconnections among humans, animals and environments.

Where exactly do the social and behavioural sciences fit in One Health?

“…An additional and important group of disciplines whose value is also yet to be fully realized in OH is the humanities ( 21 ). Not easily fitting under the social sciences label, ethicists, historians, philosophers, educators and legal scholars have distinct capabilities to enhance our understanding of health policy, health governance, and the broader institutional influences on health outcomes ( 26 , 27 ).…”

“…Equally, economics has widely been used to quantify the cost of OH diseases and less frequently to model the effectiveness of OH interventions, often due to methodological challenges. Ascertaining the efficiency of resource allocation is a key undertaking in economics and could be a major contribution of economics in OH planning, implementation, and evaluation if the technical challenges can be overcome (21)(22)(23). Arguably, these applications of behavioural science can deliver useful information for OH agendas, but they can overlook critical information that might for example, generate insights about context, conflict, and complex institutional relationships.…”

Editorial

“…• For example: − Language: Sectoral, institutional and disciplinary cultures generate communication gaps through different ways of conceptualising problems, approaches and methods, as well as terminology (Barnett et al, 2020;Buschhardt et al, 2021); − Gender and culture: Gender and cultural differences in political, governance and knowledge systems (e.g., social sciences vs natural sciences) generate complexity in the encoding and decoding of messages, as well as inequities in power, including who is allowed to speak and be listened to (Garnier et al, 2020;Brandão et al, 2021); − Perceptional: Different value and belief systems, experiences and backgrounds create differing perceptions that may hinder communication and restrict One Health progress due to ensuing gradients of power, hierarchy and status (Abbas et al, 2022); • Consequently, a One Health competent person will require awareness of these barriers and the skills (e.g. public speaking, cultural and gender awareness, listening and media training) to overcome them for effective communication.…”