CDC Features SPH-produced Training Course.

Climate change poses a significant threat to the health of communities, and with increasing concerns about emerging novel viruses and severe storms as climate change progresses, the connection between the environment and health is critical.

The School of Public Health is at the forefront of environmental health practice, and throughout June, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is highlighting a new One Health course offered by the New England Public Health Training Center (NEPHTC), which is housed in the Office of Lifelong Learning at SPH. The center’s free, online course is a one-hour, self-paced introduction to the field of One Health—a transdisciplinary approach to understanding the connection between humans, animals, and their shared environment. It is being featured for a month on the CDC Learning Connection website, an educational platform that offers public health continuing education opportunities by the CDC, other federal agencies, and federally funded partners. This is the fourth time the Learning Connection has highlighted an NEPHTC training since 2018.

One Health is applicable to a wide spectrum of disciplines including public health practitioners, clinicians, veterinarians, and environmental scientists. In this Introduction One Health course, participants will learn how humans, animals, and the environment are interconnected, as well as the central competency areas for One Health practice, the main topic areas of One Health and how they overlap, and the One Health aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This course shows how humans, animals, and the environment are all interacting together, and how this can impact health for all,” says Karla Todd, a training specialist and senior program manager of the NEPHTC. “I learned a lot from this course, such as how COVID-19 provides us with many examples for why a One Health approach is necessary to optimize the health of all. These include understanding how pathogens spillover from animals to humans, air pollution worsening increasing COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, animal companionship during lockdown, and the infection risk humans pose to other animals.”

Todd says that One Health has come into greater focus in recent years due to climate change, especially in northern New England states like Maine and Vermont, where the economy is more reliant on agriculture. But One Health is not just about environmentalism, it’s about using a different lens. “As humans, we really can’t consider ourselves separate from animals and the environment, so the goal of this course is to bring awareness of our interconnectedness and begin to change the lens with which participants approach health.”

The training offers continuing education credits for certified health education specialists, and the NEPHTC also partnered with the Boston University School of Medicine Continuing Medical Education Office to offer one Nursing Continuing Professional Development contact hour credit for the training. This is the first time that an NEPHTC training that is being promoted by the CDC offers this credential.

“As front-line healthcare providers, nurses have a unique opportunity to change the awareness and dialogue surrounding the connection between human, animal, and environmental health,” said one nurse reviewer of the course. “This course adds evidence and information to their toolbox that broadens their understanding of this connection. Using their trusted voice, armed with this evidence, learners can help their patients make connections they may be unaware of in terms of their health.”

Course content was developed by alum Lynn Blevins (SPH’98), a One Health expert and medical epidemiologist.  Although she is trained as a physician (for humans), she holds a part-time faculty appointment at The University of Vermont’s Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, a relationship sparked by the need for transdisciplinary work in the field of One Health. “One Health applies to everyone and so there is something for everyone in this course,” says Blevins.  “One Health has long been part of veterinary medicine and is increasingly being integrated into pubic health, but it is also highly relevant to human-focused clinicians environmental scientists, and other disciplines that shape the way we live like city planning.”

 Veena Govada, a front-end developer for the Office of Lifelong Learning, designed the format and technical components of the course. The public health and cross-disciplinary workforces need these short format courses to get the ideas across in a short period of time. “People with different areas of expertise, using the same One Health lens, are needed to solve our most complex health problems like emerging infectious diseases, pollution, and antimicrobial resistance,” says Blevins.

The New England Public Health Training Center strengthens the public health workforce through a wide range of programs and services, particularly in the region’s medically underserved and rural areas. It also connects students to internship opportunities that focus on improving health equity across the region.

To enroll in the Introduction to One Health online course, click here.