The Persuasive Power of Policy Problem Definitions: The Case of One Health in Australia

Abstract

One Health has been well studied and critiqued as an approach to infectious disease management, spanning the hazard-to-disaster cycle from preparation for an impending crisis (e.g., surveillance, indicators) to mitigation post crisis (e.g., cross sectorial action plans). Recent calls have aimed at prevention of spillover and spread of infectious diseases or avoiding the disaster cycle altogether. Yet, public awareness, adoption, and implementation of One Health remains challenging. Using the Narrative Policy Framework as theoretical scaffolding to construct causal problem definitions, we investigate the power of One Health as a problem definition on individuals to allocate resources toward proactive (versus reactive) policy actions.