The political economy of One Health: implications for crisis governance research

‘One Health’ is a key concept for guiding how emerging infectious diseases at the animal and human interface are framed, which is a greater focus on multi-sector collaboration to address the ‘causes of the causes’ of disease outbreaks. This chapter documents the development of One Health perspectives and examines the gaps in the extant global arrangements from addressing threats from a One Health perspective. The chapter calls for a greater degree of governance rebalancing from the present situation whereby One Health-based health security initiatives are often bottom-up and fragmentary. There is a need for more sustained global leadership within this space in order to help build the capacities of national health systems. The chapter discusses the need for knowledge integration between disciplinary areas and concludes with identifying avenues for future research for crisis governance research. Overall, a One Health focus for the crisis governance of health security could be an effective means of achieving a new political economy in the context of health security.