sea turtle flip flop

What is Rx One Health?

Novel pathogens, climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, health disparities, antimicrobial resistance, water scarcity, pollution... our planet faces a host of interrelated serious challenges in the Anthropocene era. The Rx One Health Field Institute is a transformative  field-based experiential learning course focused on One Health core competencies for graduate students and early career professionals from all disciplines. In 2024, Rx One Health will take place in California, June 23 - July 7, 2024.  Biodiverse and magnificent landscapes will provide a backdrop for immersive One Health learning! 

Developing key skills

Rx One Health participants develop skills in laboratory and research methods, ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity conservation, epidemiology, infectious disease surveillance, biosafety, biosecurity, food safety, agriculture, food security, hydrology, marine ecology, communications, community and stakeholder engagement, ethics, teamwork, and leadership. Through hands-on experiences, case studies, group discussions and field exercises, Rx One Health develops participants’ skills for addressing complex challenges using the One Health approach, which recognizes that the health of people, animals, and their environments are interconnected, and that problem solving to address complex challenges is best achieved through transdisciplinary collaboration.

One Health approach is at the core

The intensive course is aimed at a level appropriate for recent graduates or students in medical and veterinary schools around the world, as well as other early career health, agriculture, environmental sciences, and conservation professionals. Participants are immersed in settings that illustrate the health of people, animals and the environment are inextricably linked. Rx One Health provides participants with direct access to mentors, tools, and knowledge to allow them to apply a One Health approach to their lives’ work. Course activities center on exposing participants to real-world One Health situations, challenging them to consider the many interrelated issues that are typical of complex problems, and to see firsthand, and even develop themselves, One Health strategies for overcoming these challenges. All Rx One Health participants will greatly improve their understanding and grasp of One Health competencies: cross-disciplinarity; communications; professional integrity, ethics and diplomacy; vision integration and advocacy for change; teamwork; and systems thinking. 

Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Since the inception of the Rx One Health Field Institute, we have welcomed over 130 participants from more than 20 countries, representing a range of academic backgrounds and experiences. Diverse perspectives are essential to conducting good science as well as to reducing biases and assumptions in critical thinking. Within the context of a One Health approach, novel ideas that impact the health of all should be fundamental to our approach in solving today's greatest environmental, animal and human health challenges.    We are committed to supporting the principles of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as outlined by the UC Davis Principles of Community and are taking steps to make the course accessible to and engaging for qualified candidates, especially those historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines.   Please indicate in the application if you would like to be considered for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion scholarship; a limited number of partial and full scholarships are available.   


An Envirovet Summer Institute Legacy Course

The Rx One Health curriculum has been built on the tremendous legacy of a course called Envirovet Summer Institute that was co-led by UC Davis and offered throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and which trained more than 400 veterinarians and veterinary students from around the world in ecosystem health (a precursor to One Health). Like Envirovet, Rx One Health is an immersion-style, hands-on, intensive training course.