Zoonotic Disease Dynamics and One Health Approaches

Zoonotic diseases, which originate in animals and transmit to humans, represent a substantial and growing threat to global health, economies and biodiversity. Their dynamics are shaped by ecological, environmental and social factors, including land-use change, urban expansion, wildlife exploitation and climate variability. Pathogens move across wildlife, livestock and human populations through complex networks of contacts and shared environments. Understanding these networks requires interdisciplinary frameworks that integrate epidemiology, ecology, veterinary science and social science. The One Health approach advances such integration by recognising that human, animal and ecosystem health are interdependent. It promotes collaborative surveillance, data sharing and joint interventions across sectors. Practically, this can involve coordinated vaccination campaigns in domestic and wild reservoirs, habitat management to reduce high-risk interfaces and policies to regulate wildlife trade. By linking research on pathogen emergence with health policy and community engagement, One Health strategies aim to anticipate spillover events, enhance outbreak preparedness and foster sustainable coexistence between people, animals and their environments.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have refined our understanding of geographical and agricultural drivers of zoonotic emergence. Analyses of global outbreak data have identified tropical forest regions undergoing rapid land-use conversion and areas of high mammalian biodiversity as persistent hotspots for novel spillover events. Modelling efforts have produced predictive risk maps that integrate reporting effort and environmental change, guiding targeted surveillance in regions of greatest risk. Other work has examined how projected expansion and intensification of food production will influence infectious-disease patterns, revealing that agricultural drivers accounted for a significant proportion of zoonotic emergences since the mid-20th century and are poised to intensify with growing food demand. Foundational research has also shown that viruses capable of infecting diverse host taxa are more likely to achieve sustained human-to-human transmission, underscoring the importance of host plasticity in pandemic potential and informing prioritisation of surveillance efforts at multi-species interfaces.

Zoonotic Disease Dynamics and One Health Approaches publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in zoonotic disease dynamics and one health approaches across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Zoonosis: A disease caused by pathogens transmissible between vertebrate animals and humans.

Spillover: The process by which a pathogen moves from its natural animal reservoir into a new host species, often humans.

Reservoir host: One or more populations or environments in which a pathogen is maintained long term and from which infection spreads to target hosts.

One Health: A collaborative, multisectoral approach that recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal and ecosystem health.

Host plasticity: The capacity of a pathogen to infect a taxonomically and ecologically diverse range of host species, often linked to increased emergence potential.

References

1. Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nature Communications (2017).
2. Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife–Livestock–Human Interface. Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2016).
3. The One Health Concept: 10 Years Old and a Long Road Ahead. Frontiers in Veterinary Science (2018).
4. From “one medicine” to “one health” and systemic approaches to health and well-being. Preventive Veterinary Medicine (2010).
5. Emerging human infectious diseases and the links to global food production. Nature Sustainability (2019).
6. Global shifts in mammalian population trends reveal key predictors of virus spillover risk. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2020).
7. Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity. Scientific Reports (2015).