One Health: What’s the Problem?

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘One Health approach’ has ambivalently become a key policy instrument for dealing with global health risks, which raises some key questions. What problems does the One Health approach really address? And what is problematic about One Health? This article traces the development of the One health concept and deconstructs its implementation in policy and practice. While the original One Health approach has gradually embraced a broader outlook, it has ended up being implemented through the narrow focus on global health security gaining increased traction. Capitalism, according to Marx, creates a ‘Metabolic Rift’ between human and natural systems, undermining the conditions for human and nonhuman flourishing. For over 25 years, this rift concept has been extensively discussed in environmental sociology and political ecology, but it has sadly not found its way into interdisciplinary One Health scholarship and practice. Practically, and at its core, the One Health approach remains mainly hooked to biomedical, risk adaptation and risk mitigation strategies when it comes to existing and future pathogens emerging in the interactions between human, animals and the ecological environment. As such, One Health risks to maintain and confirm a status quo, hence deprived of any transformative potential.