Debunking the Myth: Operationalising One Health through CAPHIA Core Competencies

When I introduce myself as a One Health researcher, the first question I am often asked is – “What is One Health?” After a brief explanation, many respond- “Oh- you mean system thinking, planetary health or echohealth”. This conflation is common. At the 2025 Public Health Association of Australia conference, about one in four attendees I spoke with held this misconception. Even at the CAPHIA Teaching and Learning Forum, several colleagues admitted they were unsure how to embed One Health in their course content. This is striking because while Australia has established a One Health unit with the Australian Centre for Disease Control (ACDC), many in the public health workforce remain untrained or have a partial understanding of One Health.

Why this myth persists?

A common misperception is that One Health is theoretical or veterinary health centric and thus less relevant to public health disciplines that do not directly engage with animals. Others view it as conceptually sound but difficult to teach or assess. This stems in part from competency frameworks that historically emphasised infectious diseases and surveillance while mentioning One Health only indirectly. The CAPHIA Competency Review (2021) found similar gaps-most notably in system thinking, Human Rights, and One Health and recommended their explicit inclusion across CAPHIA Core Capacity domains. When One health is treated not as an add-on but as a cross-cutting lens, embedded throughout CAPHIA’s six domains, the path from concept to classroom to community becomes clear (see the case study).

What the evidence now says One Health must include?

The Lancet One Health Commission (2025) broadened the scope of One Health, defining it as an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multisectoral approach that advances equitable, sustainable, and healthy socioecological systems. It extends beyond zoonotic disease to include AMR, NCDs, food system, and governance. The commission reframes the human-animal-environmental model into a socioecological systems perspective, placing environment, biodiversity, pollution, and climate at the centre of health. This expanded framing mirrors CAPHIA’s own evolution-linking disease control, environmental protection, and social determinants of health.

From concept to classroom: using CAPHIA to operationalise One Health

So, how can we bring One Health into the classroom? The CAPHIA core competencies already provide a roadmap. Each of CAPHIA’s six domains offers opportunities to make One Health relevant and actionable for students:

Health Monitoring and Surveillance integrates environmental, veterinary, and human data streams such as wastewater, vector, or surface sampling and teach ethical, community-based approaches to data collection and use -addressing CAPHIA’s recommendation to strengthen quantitative and analytical research methods with curricula.  Disease Prevention and Control cover both infectious and chronic diseases, connecting them to land use, climate, and food systems, aligning with the call to include non-communicable diseases in this domain. Health Protection explores preparedness, emergency response and equity, embedding contemporary language around health protection and health security. This provides a bridge between global health frameworks and local application. Health Promotion prioritises community centred approaches, Indigenous leadership and partnership, and ethical communication that supports empowerment and participants. Health Policy, Planning and Management apply systems mapping, trade-off analysis, and One Health in All Policies approaches to strengthen intersectoral collaboration. Finally, Evidenced-based Professional and Population Health Practice strongly encourages interdisciplinary research design and combining fields like epidemiology, public health, economics and social sciences to address multifaceted completes health issues. Together, these domains make One Health teachable, assessable and actionable, shifting our focus from discrete topics to competence in integration-the ability to link environmental signals to population action, co-produce knowledge with communities, and evaluate impact across humans, animals, and ecosystems. Here are two examples from University of New South Wales and The University of Queensland.

A case study: wastewater surveillance as One Health Classroom

At UNSW, our wastewater surveillance collaboration with different agencies, industries and universities shows how One Health can be taught through doing. Students learn to integrate environmental and clinical data to monitor mpox, design sampling frames, navigate ethical data sharing, and evaluate interventions-demonstrate competencies across surveillance, prevention, system thinking, and policy translation.

Integration of One Health in the School of Public Heath Courses

At UQ, School of Public Health, One Health is embedded across courses to ensure graduates develop the skills and knowledge required for real-world practice, aligned with CAPHIA Core Competencies. Take PUBH7031: One Health: Diseases at the Human-Animal interface. This course introduces students to One Health concepts and trains them to apply an evidence-based, transdisciplinary framework for infectious disease surveillance and control. Students learn to interpret epidemiological and ecological data, design integrated interventions, and understand health systems that span human and animal services. This directly addresses CAPHIA competencies in Evidence-Based Practice, Systems Thinking, and Policy and Advocacy, equipping graduates to influence health policy and respond to emerging zoonotic threats.

Similarly, the INDH courses—INDH1005: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (undergraduate) and INDH7002: First Nations Health and Wellbeing (postgraduate), embed One Health through a focus on cultural, social, and environmental determinants of health. These courses explore principles of Indigenous Health Equity, integrate environmental health and policy initiatives, and emphasise co-design decolonial approached with Indigenous leadership and partnerships. Students learn to plan culturally appropriate health equity strategies that respect connections to land and water, core elements of One Health. This aligns with CAPHIA competencies in Cultural Competence and Equity, Determinants of Health, and Community Engagement, ensuring graduates can work collaboratively and ethically in diverse settings.

Together, these examples debunk the myth that One Health is siloed. Instead, they show how UQ and UNSW operationalises One Health across its curriculum, preparing future public health professionals to think systemically, act collaboratively, and advocate for integrated solutions, skills that are essential for addressing today’s global health challenges.

In conclusion, One Health is not an extra-it is how we future-proof the public health workforce. The belief that it is too abstract or discipline-specific dissolves when we view it through CAPHIA’s competency framework. CAPHIA provides the structure; the Lancet One Health Commission provides the vision. Embedding One Health through CAPHIA is therefore not an add-on. It is the most practical and necessary step toward building an equitable, sustainable, and resilient socioecological health system.