Focus Area: One Health
Speaker: Christian Albrecht,
Substitute Speaker: André Große-Stoltenberg
One Health aims to understand the intricate relationships between human, animal, and environmental health, and to develop effective strategies to tackle the complex health challenges that emerge from these interactions.
One Health’s proactive approach ensures that all species can thrive in a healthier, more resilient world. Research in this area covers a wide range of topics, including emerging infectious disease outbreaks, their relationship to the environment, land use, climate and societies, and links to other Focus Areas of the ZEU. By analyzing historical disease outbreaks, such as the plague in late medieval Europe, we identify trends, risk factors, and successful interventions that can inform strategies for managing future health threats. Spatial analysis of hosts, vectors and human activities allows the development of tailored management plans for disease surveillance, as shown for Schistosomiasis in East Africa. Increasing antimicrobial resistance due to overuse in agriculture, the impact of urbanization and environmental pollution is another issue being addressed within the ZEU.