EPA Research Partner Support Story: One Health collaborations with state environmental, health, and fish & wildlife agencies
Partner: Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), and Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA)
Challenge: Collaborating with state environmental, health, and fish & wildlife agencies to tackle environmental challenges
Resource: Webinars, workshop, Community of Practice
Project Period: 2021 – Present
One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral and trans-disciplinary approach—working at local, regional, national and global levels—to achieve optimal health and well-being outcomes recognizing the interconnections between people, animals, plants and their shared environment. Since 2021, EPA ORD has been collaborating with our state partners at the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) to raise awareness of and promote the One Health framework to tackle environmental challenges.
“The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) values and appreciates the partnership with US EPA, the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to raise awareness, expand collaboration, and support communication on One Health. EPA is serving an important role as a convenor to bring together practitioners across multiple sectors and disciplines to improve human, environmental and animal health.” – Former AWFA President and Director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Curt Melcher
EPA ORD and our state partners hosted two webinars and one workshop in 2021 to promote the One Health approach and to identify potential collaborative project ideas. The webinars served to discuss the importance of the One Health approach and the role of different environmental, health and animal professionals within the One Health framework. View recordings of the webinars here. The goal of the small workshop, held in December 2021, was to further explore One Health topics of interest to states and EPA with practitioners, build and enhance relationships between state environmental, health, and natural resource/fish and wildlife agencies, and identify potential One Health projects to collaborate on at both the state and national levels that will benefit states.
One idea that came out of the workshop was to host a quarterly One Health Community of Practice (CoP). EPA and our state partners kicked off the One Health CoP in 2022. The quarterly CoP has continued and is also open to our Tribal and federal partners. These meetings focus on the environmental pillar of One Health and missions that are relevant to EPA and our partners. EPA and our state partners held joint webinars to highlight all of the above mentioned One Health efforts and more in November 2022 and November 2023.
In 2023, ECOS and ASTHO developed four case studies of state agencies applying the One Health approach to tackle environmental challenges. The case studies include lead in Idaho, harmful algal blooms in New Jersey, fish tissue monitoring in Georgia, and PFAS in Wisconsin. Read the ASTHO One Health case studies. Read the ECOS One Health case studies.