August 15, 2026
Overview:
France’s decision to anchor its 2026 G7 presidency around One Health has brought the approach to a high point of political attention. In this Lancet correspondence, OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan argues that this momentum should be matched by a sharper agenda that moves One Health beyond describing a broad vision and towards specifying what should change, for whom, and at what cost.
The Question:
How can One Health move from a broad vision to a framework that helps guide decisions about priorities, investments, and health outcomes?
The Findings:
Dr. Laxminarayan argues that existing One Health definitions do not adequately acknowledge the trade-offs involved in balancing human, animal, and ecosystem health. As One Health covers topics including zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, climate change, biodiversity, governance, and more, its broad scope risks making it difficult to determine what investments should be prioritized.
The correspondence highlights several considerations:
- The practical case for One Health rests largely on its potential to improve human health through integrated surveillance, antimicrobial resistance stewardship, zoonosis control, and environmental health investments.
- Proposed interventions should consider what reduction in human disease burden they can achieve, at what cost, and compared with what alternative investments.
- Environmental protection can constrain agricultural expansion and affect food prices and access, while higher animal welfare standards can increase food production costs and have regressive effects.
- One Health should specify whose health is being improved, at what cost, at whose expense, how outcomes will be measured, and who will be accountable.
The correspondence argues that One Health’s central insight remains important: human health cannot be protected through technological interventions alone without considering the ecological systems in which people live. The 2026 G7 focus provides an opportunity to make the approach more specific, measurable, and accountable.
Read the correspondence in The Lancet here.
