One Health: a joint framework for action published by five EU agencies
Today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Environment Agency (EEA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published a joint framework for action to strengthen cooperation to support the implementation of the One Health agenda in the European Union (EU).
One Health recognises the complex interplay between human, animal and plant health, food safety, the climate crisis and environmental sustainability. Implementing this approach across different sectors will be key to making the EU and its Member States better equipped to prevent, predict, detect and respond to health threats. It will mitigate the impact and societal cost of such threats, or even prevent their emergence, while also helping to reduce human pressures on the environment and safeguarding key societal needs such as food security and access to clean air and water.
A cross-agency task force will work on implementing the joint framework for action over the next three years (2024-2026), focusing on five strategic objectives: strategic coordination, research coordination, capacity building, stakeholder engagement and joint inter-agency activities. This will ensure that the scientific advice provided by the agencies is increasingly integrated, that the evidence base for One Health is strengthened and that the agencies are able to contribute with a common voice to the One Health agenda in the EU.
In November 2023, the five EU agencies that provide scientific advice on the environment, public health and food safety topics issued a joint statement expressing their shared commitment to supporting the One Health agenda in Europe.
On the occasion of the launch of the joint framework for action, the Executive Directors of the five EU Agencies reinforced their commitment to the One Health approach in a joint video statement:
Read the frameworks
Scientific and technical publications
Cross-agency One Health task force framework for action
The document outlines the common vision and objectives of the One Health task force and lists a set of concrete actions to achieve them.
ECDC corporate
ECDC One Health Framework
A framework on how ECDC will strengthen, develop and implement the One Health approach in its activities for the prevention and control of communicable diseases in the EU/EEA in order to improve public health in the Member States.
Disease page
One Health
One Health is a multi-sectoral approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals, plants, and their shared environment, recognising their interconnection.