Teaching the basics of the One Health concept to undergraduate veterinary students

The increasingly acknowledged "One Word, One Health" (OH) concept studies the collaborative multi-disciplinary approaches for the assessment of human and animal health and the environment. This study provides information about a module of activities created to teach the OH concept to undergraduate veterinary students. The module consisted of three different activities: theoretical classes, teamwork for the preparation of different concepts and practical examples related to OH, and public presentations of the students of these practical cases. This module was evaluated by two questionnaires' consisting of online surveys, which were filled in before (questionnaire 1, Q1) and after (questionnaire 2, Q2) the module about OH. Before the course, 80% of students recognized to have a poor or very poor knowledge about OH, and a 71% failed to include the three main items of the OH concept (humans, animals and environment) in their answers. After the course, the general knowledge about OH was improved and most students evaluated the course positively, although the lack of time and the high number of students per group were pointed out as the main drawbacks. In conclusion, the module of activities described in this report contributed to the increase of OH knowledge by veterinary students and could be a resource for future advances to improve the teaching of the OH concept in the curricula at University level in Veterinary and other Degrees related with OH.