One Health Breakfast Talks-Turning One Health AMR Commitments into Action and Behavior Change

To mark One Health Day, DGAV is releasing an analysis of the Breakfast Talk “Turning One Health AMR Commitments into Action and Behavior Change: DGAV’s Case – animal sector’s perspective”, that took place on September 7th at the WCOH in Lisbon. FROM DATA TO ACTION The Breakfast Talk “Turning One Health AMR Commitments into Action and Behavior Change: DGAV’s Case – animal sector’s perspective”, took as central question for its starting point: how can scientific evidence and international commitments be translated into decisions, concrete action and sustained behavior change? The session drew on Portugal’s experience and, in particular, the contribution of DGAV and the animal health sector to addressing AMR. Under the themes “Data • Policy • Communication • Action”, the discussion brought together different perspectives on the journey from knowledge generation to action. The session sought to trace the path linking data and scientific evidence to policy decisions, communication, cross-sector collaboration and, ultimately, behavior change. The starting premise was simple: scientific knowledge, data and political commitments are not, on their own, sufficient to bring about change. Evidence must be translated into priorities, priorities into decisions, and decisions into action. LISTENING TO BUILD A SHARED MESSAGE Beyond presenting different perspectives, DGAV also sought to listen to and engage participants. An interactive session took place after some very interesting presentations on, data, policy and communication. Participants were challenged to identify the messages they considered most likely to mobilize decision-makers to act against antimicrobial resistance and to contribute to developing a collective message. The exercise explored four dimensions of communication: a call to action, a sense of urgency, a value proposition and the development of a shared message, culminating in a collective pitch. The responses collected were subsequently collated and analysed, making it possible to identify the main themes and the messages that resonated most strongly with participants. The findings now being released constitute an exploratory and preliminary analysis, with all responses collected retained in the overall set of responses, including those that could not be directly assigned to a thematic category in this initial analysis. FROM REFLECTION TO ACTION The exercise highlights different ways of communicating the urgency of AMR, while also conveying a particularly clear message: understanding the problem is not enough. Knowledge must be translated into action. Key messages that emerged included the impact of AMR on health, the value of action to protect lives, contribute to food safety and reduce economic impacts, as well as the need to strengthen literacy and society’s capacity to mobilise. The choice of One Health Day to share this work specifically seeks to underline one of the exercise’s cross-cutting messages: Antimicrobial resistance is not confined to a single sector or a single discipline. The response cannot be singular. Animal health, human health, food systems, the environment, science, public policy and communication must all be part of the same response. One Health means turning shared knowledge into shared action. DGAV thanks Teresa Canelhas (INFARMED), Lucas Martins (Permanent Mission of Portugal to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva_ MNE) for their contributions to the session. Thanking also Xavier Canavilhas (APJPS) who cooperated with DGAV on the organization and production of the event, Finaly a special thanks to Alice Matos, a veterinarian with a master’s degree in Public Health and a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine (DACVPM), whose collaboration made the data analysis and communication of the findings possible.