From intention to action – cultivating future-ready One Health agents of change

Abstract

Abstract We used a narrative literature review to identify attributes of One Health practitioners who can close the gap between intention and action to protect and promote health in this era of polycrises. The intention in this essay was to instigate discourse that challenges the current state of One Health teaching and practice, thus helping us reflect on how to future-ready One Health. One Health researchers and practitioners must become agents of change who accelerate and amplify innovations that promote One Health as a settings-based approach to advance interspecies and intergenerational health equity. This essay outlines how future readiness and disruption are intertwined and proposes that One Health training needs to cultivate curiosity, agility and convergence thinking to create future-ready researchers and practitioners. Institutional systems that can support future-ready One Health agents of change will need to be attentive to mechanisms that close the knowing-to-doing gap and promote crossing barriers. Game changing One Health requires greater investment in cross-cutting capacities and ideas that will make it easier to see what is working and for whom. At the heart of this issue is the need to mainstream concepts of fairness and redistribution of the health resources between people, animals, and settings.