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One Health is defined as an approach of integrating animal, human, and environmental health to mitigate diseases. One Health promotes public health by studying all factors, such as agriculture, food, and water security, mechanisms of toxicity and pathogenesis of acute and chronic diseases, sociology, economics, and ecosystem health (to name a few). Such an approach is essential because human, animal, and ecosystem health are inextricably linked; therefore, with this One Health approach, we are called to work together to promote, improve, and defend the health and well-being of all by enhancing cooperation and collaboration between physicians, veterinarians social scientists, economists, psychologists, legal professionals, philosophers, and other scientific health and environmental professionals. As such, the One Health movement and approach is a growing vision in global health and is gaining increasing recognition by national and international institutions, organizations, stakeholders, NGOs, and health policymakers. Likewise, the role of world-class universities is pivotal in discovering One Health scientific knowledge and translating them to policy and evidence-based practices. Universities have responsibilities to train future professionals capable of solving global health issues through interdisciplinary scientific knowledge, integrative approaches to teaching, research collaboration, community linkages, and leadership. This chapter discusses the importance of One Health and the role of higher education institutions’ One Health partnerships to improve global health.

Environmental degradation, economic and political threats along with ideological extremism necessitate a global redirection toward sustainability and well-being. Since the survival of all species (humans, animals, and plants) is wholly dependent on a healthy planet, urgent action at the highest levels to address large-scale interconnected problems is needed to counter the thinking that perpetuates the “folly of a limitless world.” Paralleling critical societal roles played by universities – ancient, medieval, and modern – throughout the millennia, this chapter calls for all universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) generally – estimated at over 28,000 – to take a lead together in tackling the pressing complex and intractable challenges that face us. There are about 250 million students in tertiary education worldwide rising to about 600 million by 2040. Time is not on our side. While much of the groundwork has been done by the United Nations (UN) and civil society, concerns remain over the variable support given to the UN-2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in light of the negative impact of global biodiversity loss on achieving the UN-2030 SDGs. Ten propositions for global sustainability, ranging from adopting the SDGs at national and local levels to ensuring peaceful uses of technology and UN reforms in line with global socioeconomic shifts, are provided for consideration by decisionmakers. Proposition #7 calls for the unifying One Health & Well-Being (OHWB) concept to become the cornerstone of our educational systems as well as societal institutions and to underpin the UN-2030 SDGs. Recognizing the need to change our worldview (belief systems) from human-centrism to eco-centrism, and re-building of trust in our institutions, the chapter argues for the re-conceptualization of the university/higher education purpose and scope focusing on the development of an interconnected ecological knowledge system with a concern for the whole Earth – and beyond. The 2019 novel coronavirus has made clear that the challenges facing our world cannot be solved by individual nations alone and that there is an urgency to committing to shared global values that reflect the OHWB concept and approach. By drawing on our collective experience and expertise informed by the UN-2030 SDGs, we will be in a much stronger position to shape and strengthen multilateral strategies to achieve the UN-2030 Transformative Vision – “ending poverty, hunger, inequality and protecting the Earth’s natural resources,” and thereby helping “to save the world from itself.”

A human life seems to have infinite value, and morality appears to demand that no effort be spared to preserve or to maintain it. Yet health care costs could destroy the economy if all available knowledge was applied to every person on the globe. There is no guaranteed solution, but this paper argues that we must look closely at the concepts of life and the person and understand the distinctions between the person as he or she really is (the “ontological person” in philosophical terms), the social person (the person who appears in the lives of others), and the psychological person (ourselves as we appear in our inner lives). If we are clear we can make decisions about how to pay for health care and how to manage it which will tend to keep costs under control and still respond to the dignity and worth of individuals touched by infinity.

The physical health inequalities experienced by people with severe mental health problems are now well recognised. Lifestyle factors, in particular high rates of smoking, have been identified as a major contributor to the raised mortality and morbidity in this population. A programme was developed in West Surrey to address smoking cessation support needs in people with mental health problems. Mental health workers were trained to deliver stop smoking support and a pilot programme of one‐to‐one stop smoking support was established. An evaluation was conducted using semi‐structured interviews to explore clients' experiences of receiving the one‐to‐one support. Service users positively evaluated the support they had received: in particular, the needs‐led, flexible approach. The study provides further insights into the views and experiences of people with mental health problems undertaking a smoking cessation programme.

Describes a study to measure the quality of service provided by food‐poisoning surveillance agencies in England and Wales in terms of the requirements of a representative consumer ‐ the egg producing industry ‐ adopting “egg associated” outbreak investigation reports as the reference output. Defines and makes use of four primary performance indicators: accessibility of information; completeness of evidence supplied in food‐poisoning outbreak investigation reports as to the sources of infection in “egg‐associated” outbreaks; timeliness of information published; and utility of information and advice aimed at preventing or controlling food poisoning. Finds that quality expectations in each parameter measured are not met. Examines reasons why surveillance agencies have not delivered the quality demanded. Makes use of detailed case studies to illustrate inadequacies of current practice. Attributes failure to deliver “accessibility” to a lack of recognition on the status or nature of “consumers”, combined with a self‐maintenance motivation of the part of the surveillance agencies. Finds that failures to deliver “completeness” and “utility” may result from the same defects which give rise to the lack of “accessibility” in that, failing to recognize the consumers of a public service for what they are, the agencies feel no need to provide them with the data they require. The research indicates that self‐maintenance by scientific epidemiologists may introduce biases which when combined with a politically inspired need to transfer responsibility for food‐poisoning outbreaks, skew the conduct of investigations and their conclusions. Contends that this is compounded by serious and multiple inadequacies in the conduct of investigations, arising at least in part from the lack of training and relative inexperience of investigators, the whole conditioned by interdisciplinary rivalry between the professional groups staffing the different agencies. Finds that in addition failures to exploit or develop epidemiological technologies has affected the ability of investigators to resolve the uncertainties identified. Makes recommendations directed at improving the performance of the surveillance agencies which, if adopted will substantially enhance food poisoning control efforts.

In years past, when life seemed simpler and the Law much less complicated, jurists were fond of quoting the age‐old saying: “All men are equal before the Law.” It was never completely true; there were important exemptions when strict legal enforcement would have been against the public interests. A classic example was Crown immunity, evolved from the historical principle that “The King can do no wrong”. With the growth of government, the multiplicity of government agencies and the enormous amount of secondary legislation, the statutes being merely enabling Acts, this immunity revealed itself as being used largely against public interests. Statutory instruments were being drafted within Ministerial departments largely by as many as 300 officers of those departments authorized to sign such measures, affecting the rights of the people without any real Parliamentary control. Those who suffered and lost in their enforcement had no remedy; Crown immunity protected all those acting as servants of the Crown and the principle came to be an officials' charter with no connection whatever with the Crown. Parliament, custodian of the national conscience, removed much of this socially unacceptable privilege in the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, which enabled injured parties within limit to sue central departments and their officers. The more recent system of Commissioners—Parliamentary, Local Authority, Health Service—with power to enquire into allegations of injustice, maladministration, malpractice to individuals extra‐legally, has extended the rights of the suffering citizen.

The promotion of public mental health is a challenging endeavour for policy actors and stakeholders. In particular, the implementation of public mental health initiatives highlighted in Standard One of the National Service Framework for Mental Health has been poor and patchy (Department of Health, 2004a). This paper attempts to illuminate the complex process of public mental health policy implementation at local level through the exploration of stakeholders' actions.An exploratory case study design was selected, focusing on one local health and social care community within inner London. A conceptual framework about policy implementation and the concept of partnership working are used to shape the analysis of the empirical findings.This paper addresses the challenges associated with the promotion of public mental health initiatives within one local NHS health and social care community. It attempts to increase the understanding and insights into public mental health policy and practice at local level from a policy implementation standpoint. Using an empirical case study of public mental health in an English locality, some of the key issues explored in this paper are about perceptions of public mental health concepts among key policy actors and also stakeholders' behaviour in Local Implementation team (LIT) partnerships. Furthermore, the authors address the issue of how local policy actors engage the local community in supporting the needs of vulnerable groups such as service users and black and minority ethnic (BME) groups.Although functional partnership are essential for the promotion of public mental health initiatives, the interdependencies of the stakeholders, competition for resources, power dynamics and the difficulty of engaging a diverse range of voices have a significant limiting effect on achieving successful policy implementation on the ground.

This chapter explores distributed leadership in volunteer multistakeholder groups tackling complex problems, focusing on community organizing practices to bridge the gap between health and health care in Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia faces increasing chronic disease, high rates of uninsured, unequal access to healthcare services, and rising costs. Regional leaders periodically tackled these problems together but faced challenges common to multistakeholder groups. In 2010, leaders from Columbia partnered with the authors in a learning enterprise to find new, more sustainable ways to address these challenges. Together we adapted a community organizing approach to develop distributed leadership skills necessary to overcome the challenges of volunteer multistakeholder groups and transform the health system in a local area. In the first year, teams provided health screenings to over 1,000 residents; over 3,000 residents exercised leadership to improve community health; over 5,000 residents pledged to improve their health. Clinic hours were extended; new health coaches focused on primary care and wellness programs. Providers and payers committed to reinvesting a share of savings in the community, which has a voice in their use. We show that developing distributed leadership via community organizing offers an approach to solving seemingly intractable community problems.

A dynamic model of the evolution of health for those over the age of 50 is embedded in a structural, econometric model of retirement and saving. Effects of smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption, depression, and other proclivities on medical conditions are analyzed, including hypertension, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart problems, stroke, psychiatric problems, and arthritis. Compared to a population in good health, the current health of the population reduces retirement age by about one year. Including detailed health dynamics in a retirement model does not influence estimates of the marginal effects of economic incentives on retirement.

Possible approaches to the formulation of health indicators and the uncertainties that should be associated with such indicators are discussed. As an illustration, two health indicators are formulated, one reflecting the degree of premature mortality in a population, and one reflecting the impact of health on the ratio between the productive and the dependent age groups in a population. Illustrative values of these indicators are computed for various countries and are compared with the corresponding values of the customary health indicators of life expectancy and infant mortality. The indication of the margin of error that should be attached to such indicators if they are to be regarded as measures of population “health” is obtained by observing the extent to which these different indicators correlate with each other when their values for various countries are considered.