Increasing Implementation of the COHERE Guidelines to Improve One Health Research

Abstract

One Health is the integration of knowledge and collaboration between interdisciplinary teams to reach the goal of optimal health for humans, animals, and the environment. As the field evolves and grows, guidelines and tools are needed to support high quality publications and research. The COHERE guidelines were developed in 2017 by a group of experts as a tool for observational epidemiological studies, providing 19 recommendations covering aspects of a high quality One Health paper. The intent was to provide clear guidance for studies that take a One Health approach so that they fully include all three domains of One Health - human, animal, and environment. This project evaluated COHERE in three ways - comparison between published papers that implement the guidelines versus those that do not, second an examination of how COHERE is cited in in publications, and finally a survey of experts to better understand how the guidelines are being implemented and how they should be improved. The results of this evaluation indicate that the COHERE guidelines are a generally accepted and supported tool that has potential to improve the quality of One Health publications. The COHERE guidelines support data and method standardization and collaboration across disciplines. Future versions of COHERE should provide clear definitions of each domain, particularly the environment domain, support improving ethical standards, and be designed to encourage increased input from stakeholders outside of current academic and publication structures.