Expanding Perspectives: New Dialogues to Address Systemic Inequities Through One Health Education
Expanding Perspectives Team
Jennifer Lane & Michael Wilkes
The One Health approach, one that recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, has an opportunity to explicitly integrate mechanisms that address systemic disparities and actively promote equality while also comprehensively addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. The next generation of One Health practitioners needs the tools and resources to not only apply their technical skills in their given field, but also be equipped to promote inclusive, equitable working environments and communities.
We plan to use our grant in three main ways. First, we hope to increase the diversity of values, perspectives, and backgrounds of RxOH participants and guest instructors from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM by providing scholarships for course participation expenses and travel support. Second, the grant will facilitate and support access to educational opportunities for RxOH instructors to develop and deepen their own knowledge and understanding of fundamental principles of diversity, equity and inclusion and how to integrate them into their routine teaching, research, and leadership roles. Third, in collaboration with several experts from the UC Davis School of Medicine and the Office for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, we are developing integrated course modules that explicitly address issues such as systemic racism, health inequities, and the disparate effects of climate change on low-income communities.
Project Vision
We envision the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, disparities, and community engagement will be woven into the permanent fabric of the RxOH curriculum, so that One Health practitioners around the world are aware of issues such as systemic racism and the social determinants of health and have resources and tools as part of their professional tool kit to address them.
Background
To achieve the mission of a healthy, just world, the next generation of One Health practitioners needs the tools and resources to not only apply their technical skills in their given field, but also be equipped to promote inclusive, equitable working environments and communities, which will require addressing the long shadows of systemic and environmental racism and social inequities. We felt the Rx One Health (RxOH) experiential education platform was an appropriate and logical place for more explicitly integrating mechanisms that address systemic disparities and actively promote equality.
Project Outcomes
One of the course’s high-level learning objectives reflected our intended learning outcomes, adding the italicized content to the following objective: Identify cultural and socioeconomic determinants of health and how the intersecting issues of race, class, and historical oppression affect health and equity. Pre-post student surveys from the 2021 Rx One Health cohort showed the largest increase in self efficacy scores was around their ability to use a One Health approach to address health inequities, social injustices, and other societal issues. In qualitative participant feedback, it was apparent that we need to be even more explicit in how this content is woven throughout and across the course curriculum. Some participants in post-course feedback commented that they’d wished the DEI content had been in more of the course, rather than on the last few days.
With 2022 plans for Rx One Health already underway, the project team is reviewing and reflecting what went well in 2021, planning to continue to use the updated DEI-integrated curriculum and course content that was added in 2021. Additionally, a summary of the experience was submitted as a poster abstract to the upcoming UCGHI Global health Day for presentation, and Jennie and Michael also hope to develop a manuscript focusing on integrating DEI concepts into One Health education. Furthermore, insights from the experience are being included in a One Health Experiential Education Training Resource that is under development for the One Health Workforce Academy website, under the USAID One Health Workforce-Next Generation project.