Oregon's One Health Day is November 3

At the request of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association, Governor Tina Kotek signed a proclamation declaring November 3, 2026 as One Health Day in Oregon.

The Proclamation recognizes the collaboration among health professionals, agricultural communities, environmental scientists and others at the local, national and global levels to address health and well-being between people, animals, plants, and their shared environments.

Core Veterinary Contributions

Veterinarians are central to the One Health framework, protecting public health by managing the deep connections between human, animal, and environmental health. Roughly 75% of new or emerging infectious diseases in humans originate from animals, and veterinarians lead efforts in disease surveillance, food safety, and biomedical research.

Zoonotic Disease Control: Veterinarians track, prevent, and respond to cross-species illnesses like rabies, avian influenza, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease.

Food Safety and Security: Veterinarians oversee herd health, manage the judicious use of livestock antibiotics, and inspect food production systems to mitigate and prevent disease outbreaks such as Salmonella and E. coli.

Biomedical and Translational Research: Veterinarians use comparative medicine and animal models to advance human medical knowledge, vaccine developments, and pandemic responses such as COVID-19.

Antimicrobial Stewardship: Veterinarians monitor and combat antimicrobial resistance across veterinary and agricultural practices to protect drug efficacy for both people and animals.

Environmental and Ecological Health: Veterinarians partner with public health and wildlife agencies to study how habitat loss, climate shifts, and human development spark pathogen spillovers.

Oregon Collaboration

The Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Animal Health Division holds a monthly virtual meeting to provide updates on animal diseases and public health concerns in Oregon. In addition to ODA’s veterinary team, other participants include the OVMA, as well as representatives from the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, the Oregon Health Authority, and the Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Oregon State University.

One Health Initiative

The impetus for the One Health proclamation is the Association of Federal Veterinarians who reached out to state veterinary medical associations for their collaboration. Similar outreach has occurred in Northern Ireland, Scotland, the United Kingdom parliament, as well as each of the Canadian provinces and Fiji.