One-health and socio-ecology, an approach towards surveillance and prevention of emerging and zoonotic diseases: Lyme borreliosis in Bonn as a case study

Abstract

Surveillance and prevention of zoonotic and emerging diseases must be addressed with integrated approaches involving multidimensional analysis of human, environmental and animal health combined with human social factors. In this sense, One Health and socio-ecological approaches are essential to understand the complex interactions of infectious and zoonotic diseases at the animal-human-environment interface.

Zoonotic disease processes are driven by a convoluted interplay of environmental-animal-human health and human social-behavioural factors. For example, cities are complex systems where factors such as population growth, environmental disruption and pollution, among others, threaten animal and human health. Furthermore, in cities, socioeconomic and human behavioural factors such as social norms, settlement patterns, livelihood systems, and community dynamics shape the human-nature relationship. However, the influence of human social-behavioural factors on the interactions at the environment-animal-human interface and the transmission of zoonotic diseases, particularly in urban settings, still needs to be better understood. Therefore, such a complex system requires a holistic and multidimensional approach that considers the environment, the health of the inhabitants (human and animal) and community dynamics.

Urban ecology focuses on the effects of urban landscapes on human health and well-being. Furthermore, urban socio-ecology studies how landscape use and human behaviour affect the health and well-being of urban dwellers. Thus, the socio-ecological perspective integrates natural and social sciences to study ecosystems and the interaction between the biophysical environment and human-animal health. The One Health approach completes the landscape by analysing the multiple impacts of human behaviour on environmental, human and animal health.

In order to further understand the dynamics of zoonotic diseases and their links to socio-ecology, this study analyses Lyme borreliosis in the urban and peri-urban areas of Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, as a case study encompassing various ecological, human, social and behavioural factors within the One Health framework. This approach aims to gain an understanding of local risk factors and to develop surveillance and prevention strategies addressing social dynamics that can lead to the emergence and transmission of tick-borne zoonotic diseases. It will also contribute to developing integrated approaches to protect environmental, animal and human health.