Planetary Health and Healthcare Workers

In this chapter, there is a description of the link between planetary health and healthcare workers. The Planetary Health Alliance (PHA) is a consortium of over 240 universities, nongovernmental organizations, research institutes, and government bodies from more than 40 countries in the world, whose aim is to understand global climate and environmental change and the impact on population health. The Planetary Health for Physicians is an initiative that aims to influence health professionals to help them understand the effects of global environmental change on patients and increase education and information available on this issue. Moreover, the One Health is presented as a worldwide strategy to increase inter-sectorial collaborations in all aspects of healthcare for humans, animals, and the environment, with the aim to “forge co-equal,” all-inclusive collaborations among physicians, veterinarians, nurses, and other scientific health and environmentally related disciplines. Finally, the chapter ends with a systematic review, conducted to summarize the results of all the studies that focused on the collaborations between human medicine and veterinary medicine in Europe with the aim to protect human–animal–environmental health. Literature searches were performed using PubMed and Scopus databases. Forty-Seven articles containing the word One Health were retrieved. The main domains showing integrated approaches were: (a) zoonosis, (b) vaccines, (c) antibiotic resistance, (d) implementations of professional network. The historical background of One Health was consistent with the joint actions and fair collaboration among human, veterinarian, and environmental institutions. In particular, 21 papers deal with accomplished interventions within the One Health approach; 23 articles relate to potential/desirable future collaboration; 3 articles describe historical aspects of the One Health. Although an increasing attention has been recently paid to One Health program, many European countries show lack of cooperation among different sectors. Creating a specific founding system for One Health initiatives could help to overcome all the barriers with the aim of a multidisciplinary European attitude.