One World, One Health

One Health Trust
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Science
  • Updated Weekly

One World, One Health is brought to you by the One Health Trust. In this podcast, we bring you the latest ideas to improve the health of our planet and its people. Our world faces many urgent challenges from pandemics and decreasing biodiversity to pollution and melting polar ice caps, among others. This podcast highlights solutions to these problems from the scientists and experts working to make a difference.

  1. 100 Conversations About One Health = 100 Surprises

    6d ago

    100 Conversations About One Health = 100 Surprises

    Send us Fan Mail The best thing about good science is that it never fails to surprise you. And the best problem solvers are always willing to be surprised. In 100 episodes of One World, One Health, we've been surprised over and over again by what people have learned as they have set out to solve some of the biggest problems facing the planet – and by how often what everyone thought was going to be the answer was not even close. The first episode of One World, One Health was posted on July 18, 2022, with guest Dr. Kinari Webb. She told us how she set out to save great apes and ended up saving people, too. Webb discovered that in forests in Indonesia, people were cutting down trees to pay for healthcare. She found that to save forests and protect orangutans who lived in the giant hardwoods, her team needed to find a way to improve healthcare access for locals.   It was a classic example of how One Health works – the intertwining of human health with our environment and the animals, forests, crops, microbes, soils, rivers, and oceans that we live among.   We later expanded on the idea of saving forests to protect human health with Dr. Paula Prist, who found that deforestation not only worsens climate change, but also spreads rodents that carry diseases into communities.  In four years of One World, One Health podcasts, we’ve chatted with experts working on a  vaccine that safely protects people against dengue fever; people fighting deadly fungal infections; ways to prevent pandemics; and the unexpected power of grandmothers.  We’ve heard a lot about the factors that lead to the rise and spread of antimicrobial resistance – also known as AMR or drug-resistant superbugs. We've discussed how antibiotics may save lives until they are used too frequently; the counterintuitive impact of feeding them to farm animals; and how this problem affects everyone in different ways, even the tiniest of babies.   We have also looked for ways to prevent the spread of drug resistance, such as the careful use of drugs, weaning the food industry off overuse of antibiotics, vaccination, and potential new drugs. We’ve even chatted about some AMR mysteries, like the case of the killer eye drops.  Listen to our review of the highlights of 100 episodes of One World, One Health, with host Maggie Fox, and find out what we found that matters the most in solving some of the world's most pressing crises.

    7 min
  2. When Solutions Start with Listening

    Jun 30

    When Solutions Start with Listening

    Send us Fan Mail Sometimes the best medicine is just listening.  We’ve found this over and over again in this podcast – doctors, public health workers, ecologists and other people working in the One Health field struggle to solve some seemingly complicated problem, and then find it’s pretty straightforward when they stop and really listen to the people they’re trying to help.  Whether it’s parents worried about vaccines harming their children; residents suspicious of foreigners who say they want to help screen for a new disease that’s spreading, or farmers struggling to work with veterinarians to keep their livestock healthy, people all have their own expertise, experience, and motivation. The so-called experts need to pay attention.  Dr. Eri Togami learned some of this working in Rwanda, Tanzania, Cambodia, and elsewhere. She’s a veterinarian and epidemiologist who’s now working on her PhD in environmental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Whiting School of Engineering.  In just one example, Togami says, she assumed farmers whose pigs were affected by a parasitic disease called cysticercosis would sell their animals readily. It was only after listening to them at length that she learned the pigs were actually valuable, long-term investments held against hard times.  Listen as she chats with One World, One Health about what else she’s learning as she works in the classroom and in the field.

    21 min
  3. One Shot, Big Shift – Brazil’s Homegrown Breakthrough Against Dengue

    Apr 22

    One Shot, Big Shift – Brazil’s Homegrown Breakthrough Against Dengue

    Send us Fan Mail It’s a rare piece of good news. A single-dose dengue vaccine developed in Brazil as part of an international collaboration protected people against at least two strains of the virus for five years or longer, and did so safely.  The vaccine was already being tested across Brazil and the findings helped boost confidence in its use.  “This is a big deal,” says Dr. Andre Siqueira, Head of the Dengue Global Program at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI).   Dr. Siqueira, who is also an Infectious Diseases Consultant at Brazil’s Instituto Nacional de Infectologia Evandro Chagas, a hospital that is part of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), helped develop the vaccine. He chatted with One World, One Health about the work in 2024.  The new vaccine worked almost perfectly to keep people from being hospitalized with severe dengue symptoms, Dr. Siqueira and the team reported in Nature Medicine.   That’s a big deal. Dengue can cause terrible symptoms, including severe abdominal pain, internal bleeding, severe muscle aches, and long term fatigue. From January 2025 to January 2026, dengue killed more than 4,000 people.  The only other dengue vaccines currently available are a two-dose formula made by Japanese manufacturer Takeda and Sanofi’s Dengvaxia, which the company is discontinuing because of a lack of demand.  In this episode, Siqueira updates host Maggie Fox about the latest findings on the new vaccine’s efficacy and its rollout in Brazil.

    21 min
  4. The Potential Nightmare of Mirror Bacteria

    Mar 31

    The Potential Nightmare of Mirror Bacteria

    Send us Fan Mail Imagine a life form identical to your own, only backwards. At first, it would look normal. But just like when you try to use a mirror to read text on a page, it doesn’t quite translate.  For some reason, all of the DNA of life on Earth is right-handed. The double helix of DNA that codes for all life on the planet spirals to the right – a quality called chirality. But, in theory, scientists could build cells based on DNA that spirals to the left.  These mirror cells could defy some of the rules of biology. While it’s not clear how they might be useful, several labs sought to examine the possibility. Some of the U.S. scientists who took a look were startled by the implications and put together a team of 35 experts who studied the risks. Mirror bacteria, in particular, scared them. Like an invasive plant that local animals don’t recognize as potential food, mirror bacteria could evade the immune systems of animals and people and cause life-threatening infections, they reported. They could wreak havoc on crops and even on entire ecosystems. The experts’ December 2024 report recommended halting all work on mirror cells. In this One World, One Health episode, one member of that committee, Dr. Jassi Pannu, explains some of what the team found. Dr. Pannu is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Listen as she chats with host Maggie Fox about the potential risks of mirror bacteria and how scientists must voluntarily stop this research.

    18 min
  5. Beyond the Frontlines – Tackling Drug Resistance in Conflict Zones

    Mar 10

    Beyond the Frontlines – Tackling Drug Resistance in Conflict Zones

    Send us Fan Mail Imagine this scene: A family’s house was destroyed when it was bombed during a war. They got out with the clothes on their backs – nothing more. When they were fleeing, the mother was hit with fragments from another bomb. It tore off part of her leg. Dirt got in the wound. They made it to a refugee camp, but the wound got infected. With nothing available to treat the injury, the infection got worse. She had a drug-resistant infection that wasn’t treatable with regular antibiotics. Her entire leg and part of her hip had to be removed to save her life. She will have a physical disability for the rest of her life. This is just one story of drug resistance or antimicrobial resistance (AMR)  and the impact of armed conflict. Report after report finds that victims of armed conflict and refugees – both those seeking shelter abroad and inside their own countries – are especially likely to suffer from drug-resistant infections. Dr. Aula Abbara, Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Acute Medicine and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College, London, has been studying the problem firsthand. She’s worked with teams that found people injured in Syria’s 15-year-long conflict not only suffered terrible wounds, but then developed worse infections because of crowded and unsanitary conditions in healthcare facilities. These war-damaged hospital laboratories in Syria, especially, lacked the capacity to test for drug-resistant bacteria, and so doctors didn’t know which antibiotics to prescribe to treat patients’ infections. Solutions require taking a One Health approach, Dr. Abbara and colleagues have found. She and her colleagues call for programs to bring in more health professionals and healthcare access; introduction of easy-to-use diagnostics so people’s infections can be immediately diagnosed and thus treated with the correct drugs; stopping the improper use and distribution of antibiotics; and proper surveillance so that professionals know which drug-resistant infections are spreading and where. In this episode of One World, One Health, Dr. Abbara chats with host Maggie Fox about what she’s seen and what might help.

    19 min
  6. Saving Lives with Midwives

    Jan 20

    Saving Lives with Midwives

    Send us Fan Mail Having a baby should be safe. Yet it’s far too often a death sentence for both the mother and the baby. An estimated 260,000 women died in 2023 during and right after giving birth, and those numbers will have risen with the loss of United States global aid dollars. There are ways to improve this – better prenatal care is an obvious one. According to the World Health Organization, women giving birth most often die from severe bleeding, infections, or other complications. Pregnant women also die from high blood pressure or from unsafe abortions or complications of miscarriage. If women can get the right medical care during pregnancy, delivery, and after childbirth, the risk of death plummets. But doctors and nurses can be scarce, especially in lower-income countries. Women also often fear going to hospitals or clinics, mistrust them, or simply lack the money to make use of them.  A much easier solution is a properly trained midwife. The International Confederation of Midwives supports groups that train and advocate for midwives, who can help ensure safe births. Some countries even have programs to train and license midwives. Professor Doreen Kaura of the University of the Western Cape in Belville, South Africa heads one such program. She also conducts research into the effects of midwifery practice. Not only can well-trained midwives provide high-level medical care for pregnant and delivering women, but they can take into account cultural beliefs and practices that earn trust and ensure that women show up for the lifesaving care they need, Kaura has found. “Respectful care is not optional,” she says. Listen here as she tells One World, One Health about the benefits of midwives and how they can save both lives and money.

    20 min
  7. Food as Medicine — For People and the Planet

    12/16/2025

    Food as Medicine — For People and the Planet

    Send us Fan Mail Fighting climate change can feel like a hopeless battle. Who can take on the giant fossil fuel companies when governments are not even bothering? How can countries act when every day temperatures rise, superstorms flood coastal areas, droughts devastate crops, and weather patterns bring insects and new diseases to areas previously spared? But there is something powerful and important that each and every resident of this planet can do to improve the health of the planet and at the same time improve their own health: eat better. A new report from the EAT-Lancet Commission lays out just how to do it and it details the benefits of what it calls the Planetary Health Diet. The current way people produce food contributes 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, the report notes – and that in turn is causing the increasing disruption of weather systems. Even if the entire world stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, if people keep producing food the way they do now, global warming would continue. But a change in the way people eat can help stop it, and according to the commission, it would not be difficult or unpleasant. The mostly plant-based diet the experts recommend would not be a radical departure from how many people around the world eat now and it is based on what research shows would reduce rates of the biggest killers of people in most high-income countries and increasingly in low- and middle-income countries – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It would mean eating mostly whole grains; fruits; vegetables; legumes, such as beans; tubers, such as sweet potatoes; and cutting out added fats and sugars. People could still eat some meat and dairy if they wanted to, but variety should replace ultra-processed foods. This change in diet would drive a change in agriculture that would slow the destruction of forests that in turn could reduce pollution from burning and return biodiversity that nurtures a healthier environment, the report says. And moving away from intensive livestock farming could help stop the conditions that have fueled the rise of antimicrobial resistance – so-called drug-resistant superbugs – that evolve when farmers feed antibiotics to their animals. In this episode, Dr. Patrick Webb, Professor of Food and Nutrition Economics, Policy, and Programs at Tufts University in Boston and an EAT-Lancet Commissioner, explains some of the ideas behind the report and why food is medicine, both for humanity and for the planet.

    21 min
  8. If Governments Aren't Doing Enough to Fight Climate Change, Who Else Can?

    11/11/2025

    If Governments Aren't Doing Enough to Fight Climate Change, Who Else Can?

    Send us Fan Mail A new report on health and climate change paints the grimmest picture yet about what’s going on – not just that 2024 was the hottest year on record, but evidence that many governments have stopped even pretending to try to do anything about it. The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change finds that more than half a million people die every year from heat-related causes, up 23 percent since the 1990s. Air pollution just from wildfire smoke was linked to 154,000 deaths in 2024. And 2.5 million people die every year because of the continued burning of fossil fuels, the report says. But Dr. Tafadzwa Mabhaudhi, Professor of Climate Change, Food Systems, and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Director of the Lancet Countdown in Africa, says it’s not all bad news. Communities, people acting in groups, city governments, and others can make a difference. “We do have the power,” says Tafadzwa, who joins One World, One Health host Maggie Fox in this episode to talk about the report and what he sees for the future. African nations, especially, have the opportunity to show the way as they build cities that take advantage of clean energy, says Tafadzwa, who is also a professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Future Africa, at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The report finds hope in this trend, and estimates 160,000 lives are being saved annually as communities shift away from coal and enjoy cleaner air. Listen as Tafadzwa describes some of the successes in fighting climate change and what people and communities can do to encourage their governments to act.

    18 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

One World, One Health is brought to you by the One Health Trust. In this podcast, we bring you the latest ideas to improve the health of our planet and its people. Our world faces many urgent challenges from pandemics and decreasing biodiversity to pollution and melting polar ice caps, among others. This podcast highlights solutions to these problems from the scientists and experts working to make a difference.

Information

  • Creator
    One Health Trust
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    102
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 One World, One Health
  • Show Website
    One World, One Health

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