One Health Toxicology
One Health is defined as an integrated unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, domesticated animals, wildlife, plants, communities and ecosystems locally, nationally, and globally. It requires people from different disciplines to work collaboratively to achieve this goal. In this transdisciplinary One Health Toxicology course will cover the impact of toxicants on the health of individuals, communities, and the ecosystems.
This 1 Unit course is built on the premise that a healthy environment is the foundation of One Health. Unlike other toxicology courses which focus on the impact of toxicants at individual level, in this course we will point out why it is important to consider the impact at population, community, and ecosystem levels, highlighting the interrelationships between toxicological impact between species. However, for grounding, we will start off by covering the fundamentals of toxicology. This will include introducing the commonly used terminology, followed by discussions on absorption, metabolism, and excretion of toxicants. This will lead into coverage of the health impact of toxicants at individual, community and ecosystem levels. We shall also cover the multiple integrated sources of environmental toxicants to humans, animals, plants and their shared environment using examples from around the world. Other topics to be covered include the impact of climate change and environmental toxicants on One Health, animals as sentinels for the environment and public health; vulnerable communities and community-based impact of environmental toxicants; and toxicants as environmental stressors and their interactions with communicable and noncommunicable diseases.
Students completing this course will have a better appreciation of the health impact of environmental toxicants from a One Health perspective and also appreciate why a healthy environment is fundamentally important for the health of people, animals, wildlife, plants, and the ecosystem, which are interdependent.
IMPORTANT NOTICE & INSTRUCTIONS
OHWA is on hiatus as of September 21, 2025.
New course registrations have been suspended. No additional coursework will be supported.
We are grateful to the educators and practitioners who leant their talents to the creation of the OHWA, and to the global community of the learners who utilized OHWA’s educational resources. Your participation demonstrated the value of accessible and timely One Health content. Taking time on hiatus will allow us to regroup, given shifting funding landscapes, and we will be actively investigating future possibilities for re-engaging with the global One Health education space.
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Core Compentency Domains
This material will address the following Core Competency Domains from the One Health Workforce – Next Generation Program:
- Animals and One Health
- Ecosystem Health and Climate Change
- Environment and One Health
- Toxicology