The importance of integrating evolutionary-developmental perspectives into One Health approaches

Accelerating pressures, including climate change, emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and the growing burden of chronic disease, have revealed severely siloed medical and public health frameworks. One Health, a paradigm encompassing the inextricable links among human, animal, and environmental health, has emerged in response to these interconnected threats, providing a unifying framework for addressing complex health challenges through integrated, multisectoral approaches. Many One Health challenges, however, are not acute problems with clear proximate causes but delayed and cumulative outcomes shaped by long-term exposures, evolutionarily conditioned susceptibilities, and environmental change. A central limitation of One Health approaches is the delay between detecting emerging threats and mounting effective responses, especially for chronic conditions that are developmental in nature and difficult to predict. In this perspective, we argue that integrating evolutionary and developmental insights into how organisms respond to environmental challenges provides a predictive and mechanistic framework that can improve One Health solutions.