One Health Approach to Risk Assessment (OHARA)

Abstract

Canada needs the capability for early detection, understanding and action to address One Health threats and reduce their potential wide-reaching impact. To fill this need, the Public Health Agency of Canada, in collaboration with partners across sectors, developed a protocol for a One Health Approach to Risk Assessment (OHARA). The goal of this protocol is to unify efforts for multi-sector risk assessments on One Health hazards. The protocol was developed using extensive consultation with Federal-Provincial-Territorial departments and agencies for public health, agriculture, and the environment from August 2022 to November 2023. The development of the OHARA protocol brought together risk assessors from multiple sectors to understand roles and responsibilities, establish core principles, share methodologies, and strengthen networks.

Speaker

Sharon Calvin, DVM, MSc, is a veterinary epidemiologist who is currently the Head of One Health Risk Assessment at the Centre for Integrated Risk Assessment, Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). She has worked in wildlife health, domestic animal health, and public health in Canada. Her expertise is in risk assessment, epidemiology, zoonotic diseases, and One Health approaches. Sharon worked for 11 years as a risk assessor in the Animal Health Risk Assessment and Intelligence unit at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, often focussing on risk assessment at the human-animal interface. She recently worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, leading efforts to characterize the risk landscape for the Quadripartite One Health Intelligence Scoping Study.
 

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