"Champions in Action": Resilience-Building Through a Novel Approach for Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic

## **Adopting the One Health Approach through Increasing Meaningful Multi-Sectoral Collaboration and Strong Surveillance System**

#### **Azam Raoofi1,2 and Amirhossein Takian1,2,3**

1Department of Health Management, Policy and Economics; School of Public Health; Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2Health Equity Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3Professor & Head of Department of Global Health & Public Policy, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

One Health (OH) is a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to managing the human, animal, and ecosystem determinants of health. Despite strong support for the OH approach, there are still many challenges to its operationalization. COVID-19 is a new example of zoonosis disease with a substantial global impact, which requires an OH approach for mitigation. In this comparative study, we examine the extent to which the OH approach has been used in tackling COVID-19 macro-policies in six selected countries. This is a qualitative study conducted based on systematic document analysis related to COVID-19 macro-policies in six selected countries (South Korea, Australia, Canada, Finland, United Kingdom, and Iran) from Jan 2020 to Sep 2021. We retrieved related documents from the official websites of the Parliament, central government, and Ministry of Health of the selected countries. Using a combination of deductive and inductive approaches, data were extracted, analyzed, and compared. Document content analysis revealed that a strong and integrated surveillance system, including early detection and risk mitigation response (improving the laboratory diagnostic capacity), contact tracing, etc., was the main component of the OH approach in the policies of all countries except for Iran. Although we found some trace of multi-sectoral collaboration in the analyzed policies of all selected countries, evidence suggests that the OH approach was not considered in formulating these policies. Indeed, stakeholders from the animals and environmental sectors were less engaged in formulating such policies. A more instrumental OH approach is needed for more efficient management of outbreaks. We, therefore, advocate that to build up a more resilient health system to respond to public health challenges efficiently, two new dimensions need to be added to the WHO's six building blocks framework, including 1) meaningful inter-sectoral collaboration and 2) functioning global health surveillance and response system. The potential threats of outbreaks are increasing due to globalization, unsustainable global development, and climate change. Therefore, adopting the OH approach through increasing meaningful multi-sectoral collaboration and a strong surveillance system might be the right strategy to prevent, control, and mitigate the outbreaks and minimize both public health and socio-economic consequences of such diseases worldwide.


#### Results Discussion and Conclusions

#### Authors

Azam Raoofi1,2 and Amirhossein Takian1,2,3

1 Department of Health Management, Policy & Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Health Equity Research Center (HERC), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Professor & Head of Department of Global Health & Public Policy, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

### Introduction Methodology





#### Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all experts who gave us advice to conduct this study.

#### References

