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Background Recent emerging and re-emerging diseases in animals and humans show the vulnerability of humans, animals, and crops to disease outbreaks and the large potential impact on health, food security, and economies worldwide. A technology-enabled One Health (OH) surveillance program offers an opportunity for early detection and response as well as prevention of disease outbreaks in resource-limited settings. As an initial step toward developing the surveillance program, we aimed to identify at-risk groups of households for potential shared health challenges at the human-animal-environmental interface in a rural community of the Philippines. Methods A cross-sectional household survey was conducted in the municipality of Los Baños in proximity (63 kilometers south) to Metro Manila by enumerators living in the same community. Twenty-four enumerators conducted household interviews asking a) household characteristics including ownership of animals and crops; b) awareness, beliefs and knowledge about OH; c) family-level health practices related to sanitation, hygiene, and food safety; and d) risk factors for potential OH issues. All data collection and transferring process were streamlined using a mobile application. Results Of 6,055 participating households, 68% reported having one or more of gardens, farms, and animals for various reasons. While only 2% of the households have heard about OH, 97% believed they can get disease from animals, plants or the environment. A latent class analysis with nine risk factors for potential OH issues suggested that 46% of the households were at moderate to high risk for exposure to zoonotic pathogens and environmental contaminants. Conclusion Our findings indicate that there are unaddressed threats to human, animal, and plant health. Given the importance of the interconnections between the health of humans, animals, and plants, further evaluations of the at-risk households would be necessary to mitigate potential shared health threats in the community. Further, our study demonstrates that mHealth technology can provide an opportunity to systematically assess potential one health problems in the rural communities with limited internet connection.

Since the 2015 launch of the Rockefeller Foundation Lancet Commission on planetary health,1 an enormous groundswell of interest in planetary health education has emerged across many disciplines, institutions, and geographical regions. Advancing these global efforts in planetary health education will equip the next generation of scholars to address crucial questions in this emerging field and support the development of a community of practice. To provide a foundation for the growing interest and efforts in this field, the Planetary Health Alliance has facilitated the first attempt to create a set of principles for planetary health education that intersect education at all levels, across all scales, and in all regions of the world—ie, a set of cross-cutting principles.

A cross-sectional epidemiologic investigation was undertaken to identify tick-borne pathogens in Mongolian livestock across two provinces (aimags) from 2007 to 2008. Serology and PCR were used to identify exposure to and infection with Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, A. ovis, and spotted fever group rickettsiae species in the animals sampled. Factors evaluated for association with pathogen prevalence included region, body condition score, gender, and species. Khuvsgul livestock had high seroprevalence to A. phagocytophilum (64%), and A. ovis (77%); Khenti livestock had a high exposure to spotted fever group rickettsiae species (48%). Females and intact males had higher prevalence to A. phagocytophilumthan castrated males, as did small ruminants compared to cattle and horses. Animals with lower BCS, or animals living at higher elevations, had a greater prevalence odds of exposure to pathogens for spotted fever group rickettsiae and A. ovis, respectively. Reports of the newly identified Rickettsia and Borrelia species in the neighbouring provinces of northern China combined with the data from this study warrant further investigation of tick-borne pathogens to identify reservoir hosts and infection in Mongolian herders.