One Health Aotearoa is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders by providing new approaches to our management, prevention and control of infectious diseases.

Our mission is to break down traditional silos and bring together the best scientists from diverse disciplines, including non-traditional fields. We aspire to be the national leader in infectious diseases research, education and advocacy, and the primary point of contact in New Zealand for international engagement and collaboration in ‘One Health’.

One Health Aotearoa was initiated in 2013 around a unique three-way alliance between the University of Otago’s medical school, Massey University’s veterinary school and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), who are the national reference laboratory and surveillance provider for infectious diseases.

In 2017, the One Health Aotearoa alliance was awarded flagship research centre status with funding from the University of Otago. This has allowed us to extend our network of scientists, form new research partnerships and work with government departments and policy makers through annual symposiums and workshops.

Diverse research disciplines

We bring together diverse research disciplines to examine the factors underpinning infectious diseases issues:

  • Computational biology, bioinformatics and modelling
  • Environmental economics
  • Environmental health and climate change
  • Environmental microbiology and microbial ecology
  • Foodborne and waterborne disease
  • Freshwater ecology
  • Geospatial science
  • Health economics
  • Human infectious diseases
  • Māori health
  • Māori resource and environmental management
  • Microbiology, microbial physiology and molecular biology
  • Pacific health
  • Pharmaceutics and medicines
  • Public health and infectious diseases epidemiology
  • Rural health
  • Policy making
  • Veterinary epidemiology
  • Veterinary science