The North Carolina One Health Collaborative (NCOHC) is a unique partnership formed in June 2010 by individuals from Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University and other private and governmental entities. The Collaborative builds upon academic strengths in the local area, including four medical schools, a veterinary college, three Global Health Institutes, a School of Public Health, and agricultural and environmental research programs. Additionally, governmental agencies, such as NIEHS and USDA have operating offices within the central North Carolina region and support the One Health Concept. The Collaborative draws from this exceptional and diverse community to stimulate interdisciplinary professional and educational collaborations. Its Steering Committee reflects the One Health call for integrating collaborative expertise across disciplines, including professionals from human medicine, environmental, wildlife and plant sciences, veterinary medicine, agriculture, ecology, public health, public policy, and social sciences.
Goals
- Continue identifying year-round One Health IEG discussion topics that will attract a diverse audience of students, health professionals and the general public. Participating students will thus be able to experience the complexity and inter-disciplinary utility of One Health.
- Implement community-based, One Health problem-solving projects that engage students to develop viable plans of action for solving North Carolina-specific problems.
- Develop and implement a didactic component to the course that illustrates and emphasizes a One Health approach to problem solving. A long term goal includes the development of a One Health Graduate Program.
- Develop the ability, with a series of policy papers, to rapidly respond to local One Health issues by making the NC OHC the ‘go to’ resource for public officials and the general public in North Carolina .