Please enjoy the annual January One Health Awareness Month blog. However, this blog is of my January 2023 daily tweets @deemsharon on X. Last year was the fourth year I did daily post that celebrate One Health. Since I am working on a book this month, I won’t be doing daily 2024 One Health posts. That said, last year’s posts are still pertinent in 2024!
Day 1 – What is One Health and why is it important? Check out daily posts of why One Health makes me happy, what we can do to keep amazing animals alive, healthy, and thriving, and how this supports the health of all life. Let’s make 2023 is a year of positive planetary action!
Day 2 - Take 13 minutes to watch the vanishing wild. We must know the problems to find the solutions. Thanks to Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich and colleagues. Loss of biodiversity is an existential threat to all life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ShrqTLPVE58
Day 3 – One Health is about wildlife conservation, benefits to human health, and care of ecosystems on which all life depends. Check out our very own https://www.forestparklivinglab.org/. We do all these things!
Day 4 – Want to learn how our team of conservationists are taking action in the Galapagos for tortoise, human, and environmental health? Check out our website in either English https://gianttortoise.org/en/ or Spanish https://gianttortoise.org/es/
Day 5 #OneHealth –check out our updated site https://stlzoo.org/conservation/saint-louis-zoo-institute-for-conservation-medicine Lots of great stories on our conservation and health work around the world.
Day 6 Check out the good news story of how we are working with our Bolivian colleagues to help save endemic river dolphins in Bolivia. #OneHealth https://stlzoo.org/blog/whats-a-dolphins-life-worth
Day 7 Learn what my zoo veterinarian friend and colleague is doing to care for wildlife and our planet.
Day 8 Our patients must include elephants as they keep forests, and people around the world, healthy. Forests are the lungs of our planet! We need animal and ecosystem health, if we want human health. Dr. Stephen Blake reminds us of this in his excellent public radio interview!
Day 9 - Have you ever wondered what a vulture has done for you lately? Or what humans are doing to vultures? Check out this blog to learn more.
Day 10 – Biodiversity loss is the topic of the day. Check this website, take the exam, see how species loss impacts your health! https://www.embibe.com/exams/loss-of-biodiversity/
Day 11 – Pollinators are important for animal, environmental, and human health. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/09/global-pollinator-losses-causing-500000-early-deaths-a-year-study
Day 12 - The news out of Madagascar and biodiversity loss and extinctions is not good https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64210787 . Something to consider as we all live on an island home—Earth!
Day 13 - We celebrate the approval of the National One Health Coordination Plan. An important step for response to zoonoses that threaten animal and human health. https://www.avma.org/news/congress-approves-development-national-one-health-coordination-plan-other-veterinary-funding
Day 14 If you are at VMX 2023 during One Health Awareness Month, check out Tuesday’s wildlife session. We will talk about spillover and spillback EIDs and noninfectious diseases of One Health concern
Day 15 Thanks for all you and your team does @rainamontana for understanding emerging infectious diseases in the Anthropocene. https://nature.com/articles/s4158-022-05506-2
Day 16 - As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day, let's consider environmental justice, a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor, marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.
Day 17 – Speaking at VMX2023 on spillover and spillback and emerging infectious diseases of humans and animals, and non-infectious diseases of wildlife. Advancing One Health. Our camels in Kenya studies were part of the day.https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155316876837917
Day 18 - People helping turtles, with dogs helping people help turtles. A good news One Health story!
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/st-louis-zoo-hires-spaniels-to-find-turtles-in-danger/
Day 19 - Today in our One Health semester course, we discussed the interconnected health threats to humans, animals, and plants. Climate change was high on that list. This article helps explain why https://www.inverse.com/science/a-massive-percentage-of-earths-land-creatures-will-be-exposed-to-extreme-heat-soon?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=inverse&utm_campaign=232146b293
Day 20 of One Health Awareness Month is also Penguin Awareness Day! A great day to learn from conservationists, Addie White, as she talks of how balloons and plastics impact wildlife health. https://youtu.be/MSg4CGwmtC0
Day 21 - I recently listened to Krista Tippett On Being (as I often do!) and was introduced to an amazing conservationist, Dr. Ayana Eliza. Her work fits with positive One Health energy to find solutions. Check her out! https://www.ayanaelizabeth.com/
Day 22 - Have you heard of the Framing our Future Campaign? Join us as we work for solutions to the challenges that impact human, animal, and ecosystem health. There are nature based solutions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl0jG1jm-U0
Day 23 - This week in the Lancet was an issue dedicated to moving One Health forward! Check it out. Excellent information on global solutions to planetary health challenges. https://www.thelancet.com/series/one-health-and-global-health-security
Day 24 - Check out our article on opportunities in higher education that link how biodiversity is important for human health. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.637901/full
Day 25 - We need biodiversity to help combat climate change
“Save the elephants and help save the planet,” said Blake. “It really is that simple.”
Day 26 - A good day to consider food security. I give you a story of the link of climate change, changing livestock species, and possible spillover! http://www.drsharondeem.com/blog//are-camels-the-new-cow-of-kenya
Day 27 - We will only achieve global health if we strengthen health security in low and middle-income countries. Check out our 2022 paper on how to do this! Led by Drs. Worsley Tonks and Hassell!
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2214-109X%2822%2900031-6
Day 28 – Invasive species present major health threats to animals, humans, and ecosystems. Pox virus infectious of this Galapagos mockingbird for example!
Day 29 – COVID-19 is not the last pandemic. We need preventive, One Health approaches to minimize virus spillover. As an epidemiologist, I agree with Dr. Plowright https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/01/29/1151039454/9-diseases-virus-epidemiologists-pandemic-potential-who
Day 30 - Thank you Julian Cribb for this essay on our ten catastrophic risks https://humanfuture.org/megarisks, and how and why women leadership may be just what we need to lead! https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/the-age-of-women/
Day 31 As we come to the close of One Health Awareness Month 2023, why not consider expanding your knowledge on our shared health threats and transdisciplinary solutions. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-One-Health-Interdisciplinary-Planetary/dp/1119382866/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548273633&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+one+health
