February 18, 2020

One Health integrates a broad range of biomedical and non-biomedical disciplines to improve the health of people, animals and our environment. It reflects the indivisibility between ourselves and the natural world. It is also an opportunity to improve health outcomes and address the social determinants of health. This webinar brings together three leaders in this field who will share important insights into the power of this platform and what we can all do to impact the challenges affecting us and our natural world.

Dr. Sharon Deem DVM, PhD, Director of the Institute of Conservation Medicine at the St. Louis Zoo, will outline some of the biggest threats in One Health, the impact of the massive biodiversity losses we are currently seeing on human health and the opportunity that mainstreaming conservation into development initiatives can have on a wide range of global challenges.

Catherine Machalaba MPH, Research Scientist at the EcoHealth Alliance, will discuss the importance of the global health security agenda, its impact on preventing detecting and responding to potential pandemics and a number of environmental threats that receive little attention in global health.

Dr. Cheryl Stroud DVM, PhD, Executive Director of the One Health Commission, will share how One Health is being embraced around the world and what we can each do to implement the One Health Opportunity to improve Global Health outcomes. She will share current advocacy efforts and what we must do at all levels of government and with the public to inform, inspire and mobilize people to take action.

Speakers:

Sharon L. Deem, DVM, PhD, Dipl ACZM, is the Director of the Saint Louis Zoo Institute of Conservation Medicine (ICM) which she founded in 2011. The ICM takes a holistic approach to wildlife conservation, public health, and sustainable ecosystems to ensure healthy animals and healthy people. In addition to global One Health / Conservation Medicine research projects, Dr. Deem is training the next generation One Health practitioners. In 2018, Dr. Deem delivered a TEDx talk on One Health – the Ties that Bind https://bit.ly/2u42uq2 . She has published extensively on conservation and health topics and her first textbook, “Introduction to One Health: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Planetary Health,” which she co-wrote with Drs. Kelly Lane-deGraaf and Elizabeth Rayhel, was published in January 2019. https://bit.ly/3aOZzSZ

Before joining the Saint Louis Zoo, Dr. Deem worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society and Smithsonian National Zoo as both a clinical zoo veterinarian and a field wildlife veterinarian. During her first three years with the Saint Louis Zoo, Dr. Deem lived and worked in the Galapagos Islands, where she served as the veterinary epidemiologist for the Zoo’s WildCare Institute Center for Avian Health in the Galapagos. Dr. Deem holds a DVM from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, a PhD in veterinary epidemiology from the University of Florida and is board-certified in the American College of Zoological Medicine in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.

Catherine Machalaba serves as policy advisor and research scientist at EcoHealth Alliance, a scientific non-profit organization working at the nexus of conservation, global health, and capacity strengthening. Her current work focuses on assessing and optimizing One Health strategies, including the use of economic analyses to identify cost-effective options to reduce the threat and impact of emerging infectious diseases. She works closely with partners at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and World Health Organization, and was a lead author of the World Bank Operational Framework for Strengthening Human, Animal and Environmental Public Health Systems at their Interface (“One Health Operational Framework”) published in 2018 to assist countries and donor institutions in implementing One Health approaches. Prior to joining EcoHealth Alliance in 2010 she completed a fellowship in healthcare system engineering at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, interned with the Vermont Office of the Attorney General on tobacco control policy, and worked as a field agent for the Vermont Department of Health. She holds degrees in Biology and Public Health.

Cheryl Stroud DVM, PhD has enjoyed professional experiences in Industry, Academic Research / Teaching, Private Veterinary Practice and as a One Health practitioner. After years of research she returned to small animal veterinary practice where she enjoyed teaching clients about Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. In 2010 she was instrumental in creating the North Carolina One Health Collaborative, Chairing its Steering Committee for over three years and facilitating collaborative formation of an interinstitutional One Health course, One Health: Philosophy to Practical Integration of Human, Animal and Environmental Health, cross-listed at Duke, UNC and NC State.

Currently as Executive Director of the One Health Commission Dr. Stroud’s primary focus is educating, locally, nationally and globally, about the urgent need for One Health implementation. She shares the concept and updates about the global One Health movement with audiences around the world seeking to connect One Health stakeholders into Action Teams, strategic networks and partnerships that caneducate about the full scope of and critical need for One Health thinking and acting at all levels of academia, research, clinical practice and government. She refers to One Health as our ‘Ray of Hope for the Future’.

Moderator:

Keith Martin, MD, PC is a physician who, since Sept. 2012, has served as the founding Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH). Between 1993-2011, Dr. Martin served as a Member of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons. He held shadow ministerial portfolios in foreign affairs, international development, and health. He also served as Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary for Defense and was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. His main areas of focus are in global health, foreign policy, security, international development, conservation and the environment. Dr. Martin has served on numerous diplomatic missions to areas in crisis and served as a physician in South Africa on the Mozambique border during that country’s civil war. He has traveled widely in Africa, visiting the continent 28 times. He has had over 170 editorial articles published in major newspapers and has appeared frequently as a political and social commentator on television and radio.