ONE COMMUNICATION AND ONE HEALTH: COMMUNICATION IN VETERINARY MEDICINE TO IMPROVE HUMAN HEALTH

Health communication has become recently an essential and powerful tool for public health. Its role has been largely recognized in human medicine, but it has been less considered in veterinary medicine even if this latter field is not less decisive for the human health. The One Health concept unified the two medicines recognizing that human health is inextricably connected to animal health and environment. Within this framework, we design this study to investigate the relationship between health communication and One Health. Particularly, we focused on the role of communication in veterinary medicine and how it has the potential to improve human health. Veterinary medicine competences include a broad spectrum of aspects, which can’t be covered in a single study. Moreover, we were interested in investigate if communication has a role also in the veterinary areas traditionally considered less linked to public health. Therefore, this study was focused on clinical communication, both in companion and in food-producing animals practice. This study confirmed the outcomes from previous surveys and showed the importance of communication in veterinary medicine in improving human health. Communication in veterinary medicine is not less important for human health, and is not different from what is usually considered health communication. Indeed, both of them cover the same issue (zoonoses, food safety etc.) and use the same strategies. Therefore, a “One Communication” approach appear to be the most helpful tool in improving human health in the One World-One Health-One Medicine.