At the table talk discussion about OneHealth and zoonotic diseases, I learned a lot about how different aspects of health play out in our world. In a society where the word “health” has now taken on a completely new importance, it is fascinating to learn about there is more to what is considered healthy than one may typically realize. I didn’t realize, for instance, that OneHealth takes into account the state of animals as well as humans, and measures how the environment is doing in these relationships as well. Before, I had thought about diseases and their impact on humans, but I did not consider how environmental impacts can impact this spread of disease. I also did not realize the frequency of which diseases can jump between animals and humans. It was interesting to consider case studies such as salmonella outbreaks, and the impact that this can have on all aspects of our society. In an ever more interconnected world, this talk made me realize the importance of considering all possible causes and effects that an action can have.

The Table Talk about One Health and Zoonotic diseases was super interesting and informative, especially in the present time. I did not know about One Health before this discussion, but I learned that it is an approach to health that considers the interconnection between humans, animals, and the environment as how these affect each other, and how each aspects’ health depends on this interconnection. This was very interesting to learn about especially during a pandemic. Now, I feel that everyone is becoming more conscious of our health and also the interconnection between people and the environment as being an important aspect in health.  Especially as the climate is changing and the world is becoming more and more industrialized, many new illnesses have spread from animals to humans, humans to animals, and this also affects the environment. We need to consider these interactions when attempting to take a wholistic approach to healthcare. If we want a healthy society and healthy globe, we need to understand the connections between these different aspects. We talked about zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that can be spread from animals to people, like salmonella. There are many examples of these diseases that have spread to humans. Instead of waiting to cure the disease, we should address how to prevent this by keeping our animals and globe healthy in the first place and keeping human resources separate from potential disease birthplaces.

This week’s Rose Scholars event was very informative overall. It dealt with topics surrounding One Health, an organization I was not familiar with. As defined by the CDC, One Health is a “collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.” It was very interesting to learn about zoonotic diseases or diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans and the impacts that they can have on different aspects of our lives, ranging from health to the economy. The most insightful and engaging part of the experience was when we were sent into breakout rooms and asked to design a scenario dealing with one of these diseases; in our case, the group decided to work on salmonella. The main takeaway from this event was the importance of the overlap between disease transmission and environmental and socioeconomic factors, especially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

This table talk was very insightful considering the current state of the world. With a global pandemic ravaging everyone, it is more important than ever for everyone to mind their community and make sure they do their part to keep everyone safe. I really liked this discussion in particular because it had us break out into small groups to try and solve a theoretical community problem involving salmonella. This made me much more aware of my surroundings and what I can do prevent things like diseases from going around. It also made me much more wary of diseases in general because I had no idea that salmonella could easily be spread. During this pandemic, I have been doing my best to keep myself safe from infection so that nobody else gets infected, but I’m starting to realize that maybe that is not the right way of going about things. Instead, it may be better to have a mindset to keep everyone safe, and not just myself by not doing things that might cause somebody else to be infected even if I don’t. Everyone should also adopt this mindset and mind their community.

This table talk was different from things I usually learn about so I wanted to attend to learn about a new topic. Zoonotic diseases are very applicable to us after going through various diseases and now a pandemic throughout the years. It was eye-opening to discuss how many ways diseases such as Salmonella can be transferred to people. The whole process from getting the food to packaging and checking it unfortunately opens up more opportunities for it to become contaminated. I hadn’t thought about it as in-depth before so it was good to learn about a new topic that is also applicable and current.

After attending the table talk on One Health and Zoonotic Disease, I have gained a significant amount of insight about the spread of zoonotic diseases. After engaging in a discussion about the transmission of salmonella, we really dissected the methods of how salmonella spreads first from the raising of animals to the processing of the meats in a factory, and then to the distribution of goods over markets. In addition, the issue of the spread of coronavirus was more overlooked than I’ve known, because there is a lack of agreement in how fast it takes for coronavirus to dissipate on surface, in air, etc. Overall, this table talk was very enlightening in informing me about the issues of zoonotic diseases and with more modern issues today like covid-19.

I’m really glad that there was an event for a biological and environmental issue. Although these issues have existed for years they have been particularly emphasized recently, leading to a lot of misinformation and lack of information. As a biology major, I was particularly interested in learning about how these issues are compounded by conditions which, at first glance, might be thought to be completely unrelated. For example, I knew that diseases transmitted from animals to humans could be affected by population density, access to clean water, and proximity to livestock, but I hadn’t thought much about how deforestation and extinction events can compound the dangers. Loss of habitat or predators can causes these animals to migrate and increase contact with humans, making outbreaks more common. I was shocked to learn that mosquitoes are currently the deadliest animal in the world, due in no small part to the fact that the range shift of warm, moist climates corresponds to a range shift of the mosquitoes. The approach of One Health of a global, interdisciplinary effort to improve the health of people and the environment together was really cool. While I had heard of the general concept before, I think it is something which should be highlighted more often.

At the end of the discussion we also touched on the current stigma about medicine, health and the environment. People often think that underdeveloped countries are more at risk, but in this case, the more developed countries which are very connected to the world are affected to a large extent despite the fancy hospitals. Additionally, the stigma about maintaining health is one which I think needs to be addressed more. Not only were people who wore masks in the beginning of the pandemic mocked for believing COVID-19 to be an issue, but people are also now feeling pressured into attending social events and partying. Staying healthy, whether it be personally or contributing to the health of the environment, is important regardless of what others may imply.

I attended the Table Talk about One Health and Zoonotic Disease. This was a pretty interesting discussion because there are a lot of factors that can contribute to a pandemic or even the spread of disease that most people maybe didn’t consider before COVID-19. One of the ones I didn’t know about was how climate change could affect new spreads of diseases. As temperatures in places that were historically colder become warm, mosquitoes from around the equator could migrate towards the poles and bring malaria and other diseases with them. When we hear about climate change, we hear about the glaciers melting and things like that, but climate change will affect every part of our lives, not just the sea level. I think that it’s important to prepare for what could happen in the future as climate change continues to press forward. 

We weren’t prepared for the pandemic and the world suffered greatly. When life goes back to “normal” it’ll definitely be a new normal where people are more cautious about being in crowds and monitor their own health more. I hope that when people travel in the future, people are tested for viruses so that they don’t transmit new diseases to countries where the disease is not present.

Today I attended the “one health and zoonotic disease” table talk.

This event was my first table talk that I have attended here at Cornell and my most interactive one so far. I learned bucketloads about OneHealth and how diseases transmitted. We did an activity which posed a theoretical scenario with following questions. As someone who is heavily into the arts, I was able to break away from the discipline for a second to thinking about STEM related discussions and problem solving, which was pretty engaging. My key takeaway from this event was  recognizing a global world view and being conscious of infrastructures that can affect diseases; the global component to OneHealth and breaking down many factors when managing disease opened my eyes.

I enjoyed how relevant this discussion was in our everyday life and learning across disciplines and thinking globally about this topic. I also enjoyed hearing other’s opinions on how the pandemic was managed in our last discussion. It uncovered a lot of layers of the COVID-19 pandemic and how complex it really is.