The Urban-Suburban Nexus of Food, water, energy, housing, and Waste Management Towards One Health Approach
The project aims to develop a new interdisciplinary One Health training program that equips future professionals in human, animal, and environmental health to address interconnected global health challenges. A consortium led by the Arctic University of Norway collaborates with African and Norwegian partners to create MSc and PhD curricula, support student mobility, and build local capacity in Ethiopia and Malawi.
The aim of this project is to train and educate a workforce, who are equipped to deal with the interrelated and interconnected challenges of human, animal and environmental health. “One Health”, is a public health approach promoted by the WHO that considers the health of humans, animals and the environment in all policies and programmes. This requires a paradigm shift in teaching and training of veterinary and human health professionals, environmental and social scientists, and to bring their understanding to a level that they can assess the implication of any change sub-system or a policy on the entire system. Sub-Saharan-African countries are prime examples of the problems of environmental pollution, lack of civic amenities and pace of urbanization. Thus, they need adequately trained One Health professionals to take on and help solve these challenges.
The proposed project brings together a multi-disciplinary consortium led by Arctic University of Norway. Addis Ababa University, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Norwegian Veterinary Institute, and Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research join to introduce One Health into education of different professional programs, particularly to address the gaps in the training of One Health professionals at AAU and MUST.
The work involves the development of a novel, competence and evidence-based One Health curricula at MSc. and PhD levels. Scholarships will be available for students to encourage participating in the project tasks. Staff and student mobility between partner’s institutes will offer learning in an environment other than their own institute to broaden their vision.
We envisage that the graduating One Health professionals, trained in an interdisciplinary framework, will be capable of solving both the current and emerging health threats to improve the global health. The novel training program that will be developed will serve as a model for adaptation and upscaling to other countries in the region.
