Urgent but isolated: Public perception and understanding of One Health in daily life

Effective One Health (OH) implementation relies heavily on public cooperation, yet how the public perceives daily life OH intersections remains understudied. We investigated this baseline understanding via a targeted survey conducted during an open house event at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (n = 92 responses). When presented with an everyday scenario-how preparing a fresh salad might inadvertently link global health, animal husbandry, and the environment-most participants cautiously acknowledged a connection, though only 10.9% accurately identified the underlying systemic linkages, suggesting a tendency toward overgeneralization. While recognised urgency for integrated veterinary, human, and environmental health solutions was high (83.7% rating OH action as highly urgent), open-ended mapping of everyday OH encounters predominantly focused on isolated categories like "Environment & Pollution", "Everyday Life", and "Food & Consumption"; leaving animal and agricultural dimensions critically underrepresented. These findings reveal a striking paradox of strong public motivation alongside fragmented OH understanding. We conclude that bridging this gap requires targeted public education utilizing brief, tangible daily examples to translate high systemic anxiety into actionable literacy. Limitations include priming and a modest, non-representative sample.