One Health as a strategic approach to promote equitable access to food
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29155/VET.62.226.2Keywords:
Food, Nutrition, Health, Equitable Access, One Health, Public PolicyAbstract
In recent decades, the One Health perspective has emerged as a transdisciplinary framework suitable for generating knowledge and making decisions aimed at promoting global health in its broadest sense. The world’s population is growing at an annual rate of 1.1 %, with the largest share occurring in developing countries. Estimates show that feeding the planet’s projected population in 2050 will require a 70 % increase in food production compared to early 21st-century levels. Currently, around 800 million people are undernourished, while approximately half of the world’s population, mostly in low-income countries, lacks access to one or more essential nutrients. The response to this need must be addressed under a challenging global change context, in an environment increasingly impacted by the intensification of production systems, among other factors. While the One Health approach is considered a natural framework for addressing issues such as antimicrobial resistance or the management of emerging zoonoses, it can also provide a useful framework for generating knowledge and making decisions aimed at meeting the food needs of the world’s population. The present narrative review seeks to originally substantiate the need to value the analytical and policy dimensions of One Health to help promote fair access for the inhabitants of the planet to sufficient and healthy food, a basic human need that shapes the health of people throughout their lives across the globe.
Downloads
References
Abbasi, E. (2025). Climate Change and Vector-Borne Disease Transmission: The Role of Insect Behavioral and Physiological Adaptations. Integrative Organismal Biology, 7(1), obaf011. https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obaf011
Alt, K. W., Al-Ahmad A., & Woelber, J. P. (2022). Nutrition and Health in Human Evolution-Past to Present. Nutrients, 14(17), 3594. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14173594
Bäumler, A. J., & Sperandio, V. (2016). Interactions between the microbiota and pathogenic bacteria in the gut. Nature, 535(7610), 85-93. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18849
Bengtsson, M., Alfredsson, E., Cohen, M., Lorek, S., & Schroeder, P. (2018). Transforming systems of consumption and production for achieving the sustainable development goals: moving beyond efficiency. Sustainability Science, 13(6), 1533-1547. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0582-1
Brown, H. L., Pursley, I. G., Horton, D. L., & La Ragione, R. M. (2024). One health: a structured review and commentary on trends and topics. One Health Outlook, 6(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42522-024-00111-x
Caballero Gómez, J., Mirazo, S., Altindis, M., & Moroni, B. (2024). Editorial: Insights in emerging or re-emerging zoonoses. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 11, 1454535. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2024.1454535
Costlow, L., Herforth, A., Sulser, T. B., Cenacchi, N., & Masters, W. A. (2025). Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health. Global Food Security, 44, 100825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100825
Dietrich, J., Hammerl, J. A., Johne, A., Kappenstein, O., Loeffler, C., Nöckler, K., Rosner, B., Spielmeyer, A., Szabo, I., & Richter, M. H. (2023). Impact of climate change on foodborne infections and poisonings. Journal of Health Monitoring, 8(Suppl 3), 78-92. https://doi.org/10.25646/11403
Duthie, S. J., Duthie, G. G., Russell, W. R., Kyle, J. A. M., Macdiarmid, J. I., Rungapamestry, V., Stephen, S., Megias-Baeza, C., Kaniewska, J. J., Shaw, L., Milne, L., Bremner, D., Ross, K., Morrice, P., Pirie, L. P., Horgan, G., & Bestwick, C. S. (2018). Effect of increasing fruit and vegetable intake by dietary intervention on nutritional biomarkers and attitudes to dietary change: a randomised trial. European Journal of Nutrition, 57(5), 1855-1872. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-017-1469-0
Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (2013). Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1754), 20122845. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2845
Ehrlich, P. R., & Harte, J. (2015). Opinion: To feed the world in 2050 will require a global revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(48), 14743-14744. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519841112
Etienne, F., Lurier, T., Yugueros-Marcos, J., & Pereira Mateus, A. L. (2025). Is use of antimicrobial growth promoters linked to antimicrobial resistance in food-producing animals? A systematic review. International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 66(2), 107505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2025.107505
Falagas, M. E., Bliziotis, I. A., Kosmidis, J., & Daikos, G. K. (2010). Unusual climatic conditions and infectious diseases: observations made by Hippocrates. Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica, 28(10), 716-718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eimc.2009.11.013
Fan, Y., & Pedersen, O. (2021). Gut microbiota in human metabolism health and disease. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 19(1), 55-71. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0433-9
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations , United Nations Environment Programme, World Health Organization, & Worl Organisation for Animal Healt. (2023). One Health and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. Guidance for United Nations country teams. AO; UNEP; WHO;World. Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5067en
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural Development, United Nations Children’s Fund, World Food Programme & World Health Organization. (2023). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023: Urbanization, Agri-Food Systems Transformation, and Healthy Diets along the Rural-Urban Continuum. FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc3017en
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, United Nations Environment Programme, World Health Organization, & Worl Organisation for Animal Healt. (2023). One Health and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. Guidance for United Nations country teams. AO; UNEP; WHO; WOAH.
Frisch, J. E. (1999). Towards a permanent solution for controlling cattle ticks. International Journal for Parasitology, 29(1), 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7519(98)00177-5
Githaka, N. W., Kanduma, E. G., Wieland, B., Darghouth, M. A., & Bishop, R. P. (2022). Acaricide resistance in livestock ticks infesting cattle in Africa: Current status and potential mitigation strategies. Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-Borne Diseases, 2,100090. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crpvbd.2022.100090
Gómez Perazzoli, A. (2019). Uruguay: a food-producing country for a dysfunctional food system. Agrociencia (Uruguay), 23(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.31285/agro.23.1.8.
Grace, D. (2015). Food Safety in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(9), 10490-10507. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120910490
Grace, D. (2023). Burden of foodborne disease in low-income and middle-income countries and opportunities for scaling food safety interventions. Food Security, 15, 1475-1488. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-023-01391-3
Guterres, A., & Sampaio de Lemos, E. R. (2018). Hantaviruses and a neglected environmental determinant. One Health, 5, 27-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2017.12.002
Harte, J. (1996). Feedbacks, thresholds, and synergies in global change: Population as a dynamic factor. Biodiversity & Conservation, 5, 1069-1083. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00052717
Huang, Z., Li, Y., Park, H., Ho, M., Bhardwaj, K., Sugimura, N., Lee, H. W., Meng, H., Ebert, M. P., Chao, K., Burgermeister, E., Bhatt, A. P., Shetty, S. A., Li, K., Wen, W., & Zuo, T. (2023). Unveiling and harnessing the human gut microbiome in the rising burden of non-communicable diseases during urbanization. Gut Microbes, 15(1), 2237645. https://doi.org/10.1080/19490976.2023.2237645
Ibáñez, E., Zhang, Z., & Cifuentes, A. (2025). The role of Food Science and Foodomics in the implementation of One-Health. Frontiers in Nutrition, 12, 1662767. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2025.1662767
Intituto Nacional de Estadística. (2025). Encuesta de Nutrición, Desarrollo Infantil y Salud. Cohorte 2023, Año 2023. INE. https://www4.ine.gub.uy/Anda5/index.php/catalog/765
Jones, B. A., Grace, D., Kock, R., Alonso, S., Rushton, J., Said, M. Y., McKeever, D., Mutua, F., Young, J., McDermott, J., & Pfeiffer, D. U. (2013). Zoonosis emergence linked to agricultural intensification and environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(21), 8399-8404. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1208059110
Jonkmans, N., D’Acremont, V., & Flahault, A. (2021). Scoping future outbreaks: a scoping review on the outbreak prediction of the WHO Blueprint list of priority diseases. BMJ Global Health, 6(9), e006623. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006623
Kumar, M., Chand, R., & Shah, K. (2018). Mycotoxins and Pesticides: Toxicity and Applications in Food and Feed. En J.K. Patra, G. Das & H.S. Shin (Eds.), Microbial Biotechnology: Vol. 2. Application in Food and Pharmacology (pp. 207-252). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7140-9_11
Lago-Peñas, S., Rivera, B., Cantarero, D., Casal, B., Pascual, M., Blázquez-Fernández, C., & Reyes, F. (2021). The impact of socioeconomic position on non-communicable diseases: what do we know about it? Perspectives Public Health, 141(3), 158-176. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757913920914952
Leddin, D. (2024). The Impact of Climate Change, Pollution, and Biodiversity Loss on Digestive Health and Disease. Gastro Hep Advances, 3(4), 519-534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gastha.2024.01.018
Lee, K., & Brumme, Z. L. (2013). Operationalizing the One Health approach: the global governance challenges. Health Policy and Planning, 28(7), 778-785. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czs127
Maqbool, M. E., Farhan, A., & Qamar, M. A. (2024). Global impact of COVID-19 on food safety and environmental sustainability: Pathways to face the pandemic crisis. Heliyon, 10(15), e35154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e35154
Marano, N., & Pappaioanou, M. (2004). Historical, new, and reemerging links between human and animal health. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10(12), 2065-2066. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1012.041037
McDermott, J., & Grace, D. (2012). Agriculture-associated diseases: Adapting agriculture to improve human health. En S. Fan & R. Pandya-Lorch (Eds.), Reshaping agriculture for nutrition and health (pp. 103-112). International Food Policy Research Institute.
Mehand, M. S., Al-Shorbaji, F., Millett, P., & Murgue, B. (2018). The WHO R&D Blueprint: 2018 review of emerging infectious diseases requiring urgent research and development efforts. Antiviral Research, 159, 63-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2018.09.009
Myers, S. S., Zanobetti, A., Kloog, I., Huybers, P., Leakey, A. D., Bloom, A. J., Carlisle, E., Dietterich, L. H., Fitzgerald, G., Hasegawa, T., Holbrook, N. M., Nelson, R. L., Ottman, M. J., Raboy, V., Sakai, H., Sartor, K. A., Schwartz, J., Seneweera, S., Tausz, M., & Usui, Y. (2014). Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition. Nature, 510(7503), 139-142. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13179
Nabarro, D., & Wannous, C. (2014). The potential contribution of Iivestock to food and nutrition security: the application of the One Health approach in livestock policy and practice. Revue Scientifique et Technique, 33(2), 475-485. https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.33.2.2292
Naddaf, M. (2024). 40 million deaths by 2050: toll of drug-resistant infections to rise by 70. Nature, 633(8031), 747-748. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03033-w
O’Neill, J. (2016). Tackling drug-resistant infections globally: final report and recommendations. The review on antimicrobial resistance. https://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/160518_Final%20paper_with%20cover.pdf
Paul, S. S., Rama Rao, S. V., Hegde, N., Williams, N. J., Chatterjee, R. N., Raju, M. V. L. N., Reddy, G. N., Kumar, V., Phani Kumar, P. S., Mallick, S., & Gargi, M. (2022). Effects of Dietary Antimicrobial Growth Promoters on Performance Parameters and Abundance and Diversity of Broiler Chicken Gut Microbiome and Selection of Antibiotic Resistance Genes. Frontiers in Microbiology, 13, 905050. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.905050
Piovani, D., Nikolopoulos, G. K., & Bonovas, S. (2022). Non-communicable diseases: The invisible epidemic. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(19), 5939. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11195939
Pires, S. M., Desta, B. N., Mughini-Gras, L., Mmbaga, B. T., Fayemi, O. E., Salvador, E. M., Gobena, T., Majowicz, S. E., Hald, T., Hoejskov, P. S., Minato, Y., & Devleesschauwer, B. (2021). Burden of foodborne diseases: think global, act local. Current Opinion in Food Science, 39, 152-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cofs.2021.01.006
Schoultz, I., Claesson, M. J., Dominguez -Bello, M. G., Fåk Hållenius, F., Konturek, P., Korpela, K., Laursen, M. F., Penders, J., Roager, H., Vatanen, T., Öhman, L., & Jenmalm, M. C. (2025). Gut microbiota development across the lifespan: Disease links and health-promoting interventions. Journal of Internal Medicine, 297(6), 560-583. https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.20089
Slenning, B. D. (2010). Global climate change and implications for disease emergence. Veterinary Pathology, 47(1), 28-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0300985809354465
Sonnenburg, J. L., & Sonnenburg, E. D. (2019). Vulnerability of the Industrialized Microbiota. Science, 366(6464), eaaw9255. https://doi.org/10. 1126/science.aaw9255
Srour B., Kordahi M. C., Bonazzi, E., Deschasaux-Tanguy, M., Touvier, M., Chassaing, B. (2022). Ultra-processed foods and human health: from epidemiological evidence to mechanistic insights The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 7(12), 1128-1140. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(22)00169-8
Tilman, D., & Clark, M. (2014). Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health. Nature, 515(7528),518–522. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13959
United Nations. (2017). World Population Prospects. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/files/documents/2020/Jan/un_2017_world_population_prospects-2017_revision_databooklet.pdf
Van Boeckel, T. P., Pires, J., Silvester, R., Zhao, C., Song, J., Criscuolo, N. G., Gilbert, M., Bonhoeffer, S., & Laxminarayan, R. (2019). Global trends in antimicrobial resistance in animals in low - and middle-income countries. Science, 365(6459), eaaw1944. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw1944
Woolhouse, M. E., & Gowtage-Sequeria, S. (2005). Host range and emerging and reemerging pathogens. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 11(12), 1842-1847. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1112.050997
World Food Programme. (2020). COVID-19 will almost double acute hunger by end of 2020. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/covid-19-will-almost-double-acute-hunger-end-2020
World Health Organization. (2022). Quadripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed for a new era of One Health collaboration. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-04-2022-quadripartite-memorandum-of-understanding-(mou)-signed-for-a-new-era-of-one-health-collaboration
World Health Organization & Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2005). Un marco para la promoción de frutas y verduras a nivel nacional. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/70208
World Organisation for Animal Health. (2009). One World, One Health. Bulletin OIE, (2). https://www.woah.org/app/uploads/2021/03/bull-2009-2-eng.pdf
World Organisation for Animal Health. (2025). Annual Report on Antimicrobial Agents Intended for Use in Animals (9th Report). WOAH. https://www.woah.org/en/document/ninth-annual-report-antimicrobial-agents-intended-for-use-in-animals/
Zambrano, L., & González-Salazar, C. (2025). Health in the Time of Nature Crisis. Archives of Medical Research, 56(7), 103256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arcmed.2025.103256
Zay, Y. K, Win, P. T. N., Bielicki, J., Lambiris, M., & Fink, G. (2023). Association Between Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs and Antibiotic Use Globally: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Network Open, 6(2), e2253806. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.53806
Zunino, P. (2018). History and perspectives of the “One Health” approach. Veterinaria (Montevideo), 54(210), 46-51. https://doi.org/10.29155/VET.54.210.8
Zunino, P. (2024). One Health: new challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic. Veterinaria (Montevideo), 60(222), e20246022203. https://doi.org/10.29155/VET.60.222.3
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Sociedad de Medicina Veterinaria del Uruguay-Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de la República
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
