The Bridging Role of Socio-economic Reasoning in “One Health”

The “One Health” concept refers to an integrative approach of health issues, emphasizing the strong interdependencies between human health, animal health and environmental health. This approach defends the need for interdisciplinarity, transdis- ciplinarity, and intersectorality in health risk management. As regards public and animal health, the role of economics has often been restricted to an accountancy role, mobilizing diversely sophisticated tools to model the cost of diseases, of their control, and of welfare systems. However, as a conceptual framework of decision analysis, economics may bring a lot more to health risk management. This paper deals with the foundations of a so-called socio-economic reasoning, stressing this wider contribution to “One Health” analysis and implementation. Referring to recent applications, this article advocates how the socio- economic framework may constitute an interdisciplinary bridge, linking technical and social sciences.