Arleigh Reynolds named director of One Health at UAF

May 24, 2018

Tori Tragis

Dr. Arleigh Reynolds has been named director of UAF's new One Health initiative. One Health is a holistic, integrated, multidisciplinary approach to studying, understanding and managing issues related to environmental, human and animal health. The concept has gained momentum around the world in recent years, with scientists and policymakers in the circumpolar North taking special interest in it.

Many universities participate in One Health, including the University of Saskatchewan; University of California, Davis; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; and University of Tromsø. Those institutions, Reynolds said, largely focus on zoonotic and agricultural issues. UAF, in contrast, plans to approach One Health from a well-being point of view, incorporating more aspects about human life in the North, including housing, energy, food and water sustainability. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified the most significant effect of climate change on human health as the negative impacts observed in mental health outcomes, a scenario Reynolds said UAF plans to investigate more closely.

"One Health looks at how animal, human and environmental health are interdependent. If we want any of them to be optimally healthy they must all be healthy," Reynolds said.

Reynolds, an associate professor of veterinary medicine and an associate dean with the College of Natural Science and Mathematics, helped coordinate an international One Health meeting at UAF May 21-22. Now he'll turn to developing One Health at UAF into a broader coalition of experts at the university.

"We will work with people across disciplines, across the entire university, to build funding resources for research, education and outreach in ways we haven't thought of before," he said.

For more information on One Health at UAF, contact Arleigh Reynolds at 474-1928 or ajreynolds@alaska.edu.