Avian influenza, One Health, and a new resource for educating communities

In the face of rising avian influenza cases, the need for education and awareness on the topic grows. That's why dvm360 reached out for an interview with Deborah Thomson, DVM, to talk about about One Health Lessons—an educational nonprofit organization—and its recently launched “Bird Flu One Health Lessons.” Thomson is the founder and executive director of One Health Lessons, author of the acclaimed book The Art of Science Communication, and chair of the World Veterinary Association’s One Health Education Subgroup. In this interview, Thomson encourages veterinary professionals to use these lessons and other resources to help educate themselves and the public about avian influenza to help protect their communities, families, and pets. 

Below is a partial interview transcript, lightly edited for clarity:

Deborah Thomson, DVM: One Health lessons is an educational nonprofit organization that I started back in 2020 and we—volunteers from around the world, veterinarians, physicians, nurses, university students, whoever it is—we train these adults to improve their communication skills, to improve their impact in their community, and we train them to deliver lessons focused on One Health: again, that connection between our health and the health of the environment, animals and plants.

So recently, we've published a bird flu lesson that teaches about the risks, the preventative measures for bird flu, and then also the symptoms of bird flu. We have developed these lessons for children as young as 6 years old, and we have 5 different lessons available in English, Spanish and French. We also have lessons for adults as well.

So, this can be delivered in your local library. This can be delivered at your local Rotary Club or Lions Club, or even with a Girl Scout troop. So think about where you can deliver these types of lessons in order to educate your community and protect your community.

You can take it upon yourself to learn how to do these lessons, or we can train you through our train the trainer program, so whatever you feel most comfortable with there is at the very end of the lesson a classroom-teacher survey so that we can evaluate how this message lands on the ground in your community. And that's not only helpful for us to develop future lessons, but it's also helpful to see really what the temperature is on the ground of interest around the planet.

Veterinarians, veterinary students, technicians, tech students, vet staff—they should all care about these lessons, because not only will it help you as an individual, improve your communication skills, but it will also educate you on bird flu. Plus, if you want to think about it in this way, it'd be also really good advertisement for your clinic if you go into a library, for instance, and say, ‘Listen, we're from X, Y and Z clinic, and we're here to talk about bird flu,’ that's very good advertisement for you and your clinic, so food for thought.

As a veterinarian, I feel like it is my responsibility to educate the public about not only bird flu, but all other zoonotic diseases. After all, it's not only important for us as veterinarians to protect ourselves and our families, but of course, we hold a responsibility to the public.

So, what is our role in veterinary medicine in educating the public?

Well, we can, of course, have pamphlets in our lobbies. We can give community talks at libraries. We can speak one-on-one with our clients. But also, it's important to make sure that we protect ourselves...