AAHA One Health guidelines aim to bridge human, veterinary medicine
By Christine Won
As interest in One Health continues to grow—from the creation of the North America One Health University Network to the nation’s first One Health framework—the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) has released its first-ever One Health guidelines.
The 2025 AAHA One Health Guidelines: Navigating Cross-Disciplinary Partnerships aim to provide a comprehensive framework for integrated collaboration across human and veterinary medicine in the context of clinical health care.
"The highest quality care—for individuals, families, communities, and our shared environments—depends on true interprofessional collaboration," said Brian Sick, MD, professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, and co-chair of the AAHA One Health Guidelines Task Force, in an August 27 press release. "Yet, despite this widely accepted principle, one of the most enduring gaps exists between human and veterinary medicine. The AAHA One Health Guidelines aim to bridge that divide—offering both inspiration and direction to support a more connected, effective, and comprehensive model of care."
The milestone guidelines, supported by Merck Animal Health, contain five sections:
- Standardized terms and definitions: These establish a common language across multiple disciplines.
- Family-centered system: The authors outline challenges, such as the segmentation and siloed nature of health care systems and the traditionally independent structures of veterinary and human health care, and why a family-centered clinical practice that emphasizes the human-animal bond could be the solution.
- Grounding principles: The document defines a system that uses an interprofessional team approach and collaborative communication as well as one that balances professional values and ethics, and stakeholder interests.
- Roadmap: This section offers a step-by-step guidance for communication and collaboration among human and veterinary medical professionals within a One Health system.
- Case scenarios: The guidelines offer some common One Health scenarios, including a tickborne disease impacting a family, declining cognitive health in an older adult owner, and support for humans and animals impacted by partner violence or animal abuse.
The guidelines also include an algorithm chart that provides step-by-step guidance on how to identify One Health-related issues, determine the level of urgency, and which professional to contact.
AAHA convened a task force of experts across public health and human and veterinary medicine to address challenges and develop strategies that approach treating people and pets as one family unit.
Dr. Carrie McNeil, director of One Health at EcoVet Global and co-chair of the task force, discussed that holistic aspect with AAHA Trends Magazine.
"While we think of ourselves as 'animal doctors,' the reality of daily practice is that we are really helping take care of a family, of a community—basically, we are practicing One Health," Dr. McNeil said in the July 29 Trends article. "We designed the AAHA One Health Guidelines to help make those intersections of animal and community health a little easier to navigate—whether you are serving as the frontline detector of a potential zoonoses, developing a pet care plan that includes accommodations for a client with disabilities, or navigating safety when faced with animal abuse and interpersonal violence."
A recent study evaluating the One Health Clinic, established in 2018 in Seattle, called an integrated approach to human and animal health care "feasible and acceptable model of care" for young adults experiencing homelessness and their pets.
The study, published in July in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, concluded the clinic's model showed promise for improving "health-seeking behaviors, and engagement in preventative, therapeutic, and follow-up care."
In an interview with AVMA News, Dr. Jessica Vogelsang, AAHA's chief medical officer, called the One Health guidelines "the first of many steps."
"I think the future of medicine is collaboration and understanding that we're not all separate entities," she said. "We're all just looking at the same family unit from a different perspective and contributing. And that’s what One Health is all about."
A version of this story appears in the November 2025 print issue of JAVMA.
The AVMA strongly supports education and advancement in One Health, which is the integrative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals, plants, and the ecosystems that support life.