2. The Collaboration principle: Supporting One Health Surveillance collaboration & cross-sectoral communication¶
Purpose¶
The collaboration principle defines that collaboration and mutual understanding are the foundations for all cross-sector One Health activities. The tools and practices collected under this principle enable inter-sector communication and help to overcome barriers to collaboration e.g. resistance to changes to intra-sector traditions. For example, a cross-sector OHS glossary supports communication by supporting efforts to find a shared language and unambiguous terminology across sectors to avoid misunderstandings. The OHS idea catalogue describing successful cross-sector surveillance initiatives in different countries will support the belief in self-efficacy by demonstrating that when there is a will, there is way. The experience-sharing will encourage discussions and may lead to new solutions for collaborative approaches supporting OHS.
Scope¶
The resources provided within this principle are meant to be generically applicable for surveillance purposes in all One Health sectors, including those sectors that were not directly involved in the development process e.g. the environmental sector. In addition they are meant to be applicable to all European countries, geographic areas and administrative levels.
Methods¶
OHEJP Glossary¶
The OHEJP Glossary is a freely available online resource that comprises an extensive list of One Health surveillance related terms and definitions. The interface of the glossary allows users to search and filter for entries in the glossary. It further provides a reference to the source of each definition and an Unique Resource Identifier (URI) for specific referencing of each glossary entry. The purpose of the OHEJP Glossary is primarily to highlight differences and similarities in the interpretation of terms used by different One Health sectors, disciplines and stakeholders. It does not aim to create harmonized definitions of OHS-related terms. The OHEJP Glossary is developed and maintained as a collaborative effort of three One Health EJP H2020 projects, namely ORION, NOVA and COHESIVE, with support from One Health experts of One Health EJP H2020 stakeholders. Link: https://foodrisklabs.bfr.bund.de/ohejp-glossary/
Additionally, OHS-related terms and definitions from the OHEJP Glossary can be easily retrieved in an automatic way thanks to the Glossaryfication web service. This online infrastructure can be particularly useful during the creation of One Health reports for which OH glossaries are needed. The Glossaryfication web service, based on text processing technologies, allows automatic search within any user-provided text documents for terms that are contained in the OHEJP Glossary. The main output is a downloadable list of matching glossary terms as well as their corresponding definitions, sectoral assignments, frequencies and references, which can be added to the user’s document as an One Health glossary.
One Health Surveillance Initiatives - ideas and inspiration (OHS Inspiration catalogue)¶
Changes and new initiatives are often hampered by the lack of vision to imagine that new ways can work or the inability to conceptualise a new approach. The OHS Initiative Catalogue is a resource that provides ideas and inspiration by describing OHS success stories. It shows different ways of overcoming barriers such as data-sharing, communication and strategic changes in OHS in many steps of the surveillance pathway. The Inspiration catalogue provides 15 examples of successfully implemented and functioning One Health Surveillance initiatives from all over the Europe Union and aims to inspire new approaches in OHS in other European Member States (MS).
One Health Surveillance Pathway Visualization¶
Surveillance is a complex process with various activities and fluent “borders”. Gaining a high level view on surveillance activities is sometimes challenging, as many actors focus on their own small part in the surveillance pathway and subsequently anchor discussions on these specific parts. This is even more complicated if it comes to inter-sectoral or One Health surveillance. To facilitate efficient communication and discussions on surveillance and to ensure mutual understanding of the extent of systems and programmes, supportive tools or illustrations are needed. To be able to compare e.g. surveillance systems in different sectors, they need to be described in a similar way. The Surveillance Pathway Visualization is a new resource, illustrating the pathway and the flow of data, findings and actors along many One Health surveillance programs. The One Health Surveillance Pathway Visualization is not comprehensive and all steps do not apply to all types of surveillance in all sectors. However, it has been aligned with other ways of describing surveillance activities and does provide a proper tool to facilitate cross-sector communication.
Figure 4. The “One Health Surveillance Pathway Visualization” illustrates the different process steps carried out in animal health, public health and food safety surveillance. The red arrows indicate where surveillance activities could be connected between two or all three sectors to support the One Health concept.
Interactive guide to developing multi-sectoral surveillance systems¶
This interactive tool is a guide to facilitate the development of multi-sectoral (One Health) surveillance frameworks from existing animal health, public health and food safety surveillance systems. The guide provides a step-wise approach to developing such multi-sectoral surveillance frameworks, drawing upon both theoretical learnings and practical expertise/experiences. The guide outlines 7 steps towards integrating sectoral surveillance systems: i) establish a working group; ii) identify and engage stakeholders; iii) define the objectives / purpose of the integrated system; iv) map the available data; v) determine the point in the process where data could be shared; vi) design and implement the system; vii) evaluate the system. This work builds upon a report describing the commonalities and differences between operational frameworks in animal health, public health and food safety.
The report is available here.
Link to the ressource: https:ejp-matrix.eu/
Outbreak guide Norway (Utbruddsveilederen)¶
The outbreak guide is created to serve municipal doctors and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority when it comes to clarifying disease outbreaks caused by infection from food, water or animals. The guide presents the methods and how the responsibility is distributed as well as templates for questionnaires, reports and database to register patients, guidelines for cooperation in the municipalities and additional litterature.
Norwegian Infection Control Guide (Smittevernveilederen)¶
The Infection Control Guide is a reference work on the prevention and control of infectious diseases. The main target group is employees in the municipal health service. The Guide is divided into two main groups; a section on various infection control topics and a section on individual diseases.
Link:
Examples & Lessons learned¶
Several One Health EJP H2020 ORION project partners carry out national pilot studies to test the Collaboration principle within a cross sectional approach. Findings and lessons learned on collaboration will be reported here.
Positive lessons and tools that facilitated collaboration and characterised positive outcomes were: frequent meetings/workshop between partners, mutual and clear definitions and goals from the beginning of the project agreed between all partners, templates/check lists/schematic drawings, data-sharing agreements in place and that the project addressed a mutual need/interest. Other things that motivated good collaborations were piggy-backing on existing partnerships and previously established trust, when political interest or pressure existed, and if equal priority/interest/buy-in/enthusiasm from the participating organisations was present. Clear areas of responsibilities and a continuous focus on the outcomes and goals rather than on detailed process and resources, were also experienced as positive in building collaborations.
Some pilot projects saw collaboration grow after having ‘planted the seed’ a while ago. However, this approach is not well-suited for a project with a specific end time. In general, it was recognised that One Health Surveillance Initiatives (OHSI) take time to develop and establish, which does not always fit well with academic project deadlines. Some pilot projects experienced that success in starting up an OHSI could be very person-dependent and convincing individuals to integrate their expert topics with others could be a barrier.
Lack of sufficient leadership support both internally in the organisations and externally was highlighted as problem. This is a known barrier for additional OH integration between policy areas and portfolios [15]. For some of the OHSI-developing pilot projects, it could be difficult to get buy-in from or within organisations without proof-of-principle. Interesting, in contrast our tool-developing pilot projects found that, despite offering and demonstrating an actual tool, it was difficult to obtain adoption in existing OHSI.
References
| [15] | Dos S Ribeiro, C., van de Burgwal, L., & Regeer, B. J. (2019). Overcoming challenges for designing and implementing the One Health approach: A systematic review of the literature. One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 7, 100085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2019.100085 |