Did you miss these publications? Two studies, developed with support from the ENHANCE project, show how the One Health approach can help local decision-makers and the private market manage coastal risks.
Coastal authorities already collect a lot of information: bathing-water quality, pollution levels, biodiversity, seafood safety, animal disease and human illness. The problem is that these signals are gathered and read separately, so it is hard to see how a change in one area affects the others. A pollution event, for example, may lower water quality, contaminate shellfish, close beaches and strain local livelihoods, yet each consequence is recorded by a different institution, in a different dataset, for a different purpose.
Two publications from the University of Thessaly, developed with support from the ENHANCE project, respond to exactly this problem. Together they answer three questions:
- How has coastal and marine One Health research evolved over the past two decades, and where are the gaps?
- Are human, animal and environmental health really being studied together?
- Can a single framework assess the health of people, animals and ecosystems in a coastal area at the same time?
The two publications
- One Health in Coastal and Marine Contexts: A Critical Bibliometric Analysis Across Environmental, Animal, and Human Health Dimensions – Alexandra Ioannou, Evmorfia Bataka, Nikolaos Kokosis, Charalambos Billinis and Chrysi Laspidou – International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2025.
- A Holistic One Health Assessment Framework for Coastal Areas – Alexandra Ioannou, Evmorfia Bataka, Nikolaos Kokosis, Dimitris Kofinas, Charalambos Billinis and Chrysi Laspidou – Sustainability, 2025.
The first maps more than twenty years of scientific literature, tracing the development of coastal and marine One Health research and identifying its gaps. The second proposes a conceptual framework for assessing human health, animal health and environmental ecosystem quality together.
Definition and origin of the One Health Approach
One Health has deep roots. The 19th-century physician Rudolf Virchow already argued that “between animal and human medicine there are no dividing lines”. The modern term took shape in the early 2000s, when international health and veterinary bodies formalised the idea that human, animal and environmental health must be addressed together. One Health is simply the recognition that these three are interconnected, and that each can be protected effectively only when the other two are taken into account.
One Health assessment framework for coastal areas
The second publication proposes a Coastal One Health framework built on three linked indices: a Human Health and Socio-economic Well-being Index, an Animal Health Risk Index and an Environmental Ecosystem Quality Index. Each draws on concrete, measurable indicators, such as bathing-water bacteria, seafood contamination, harmful algal blooms, antimicrobial-resistance markers and sea-surface temperature. Brought into a single structure, these indicators make it possible to see where environmental, animal and human health signals move together and where they diverge.
The framework is at the conceptual stage, with a pilot planned in the Pagasitikos Gulf in Greece, so it is not yet an operational tool. But it defines the structure that will now be tested, refined and adapted.
Why does this matter for decision-makers and the private market?
Local authorities and businesses working on the coast face the same practical problem: the environmental, animal and human health data they need live in separate systems, managed by separate institutions. This fragmentation makes it hard to answer basic questions, such as whether a drop in water quality is linked to a rise in shellfish contamination or to illness in nearby communities.
This is where the framework shows its value, for public authorities and for businesses alike:
- For a municipal officer or a water-quality specialist, it means anticipating coastal risks and taking decisions on the basis of reliable, up-to-date data, instead of reacting after the fact.
- For an aquaculture farm, it means being warned in time about harmful algal blooms, so the owner can protect the stock and avoid losses.
- For a coastal fisher or a veterinarian, it means working with reliable data on the water quality and the environmental zoonotic risks of their area, instead of guessing.
This is the benefit the ENHANCE tools offer the private market and local decision-makers: a shared way to assess coastal health across its three dimensions, aligned with existing EU policy instruments.
Explore the publications
To learn more about the One Health approach and its relevance to ENHANCE, watch our video and consult our factsheet.