Int. J. One Health Vol.7 Article-12

One Health information management: health system reforms to support social well-being in Thailand

Background and Aim: The information about the health problems interaction between animal health, ecosystems, and human health that the "One Health (OH)" concept is becoming more complex. This study focused on OH information in Thailand to develop guidelines for establishing a "One Health Information Management (OHIM)" system by drafting the structure of an OH information strategic plan.

Materials and Methods: A mixed methods approach was used and included questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, and observations in agencies across the country to gather evidence about actions relating to the OH concept, such as the Memorandum of Agreements between the Ministry of Public Health and eight main agencies.

Results: The study concentrated on the key issue that understanding the OH concept is difficult, as the environment and human health sectors include less knowledge of this concept than the animal health sector. Further, there are concerns about the comprehension of OH concepts, and high-level information management and data storage relating to OH, including medicine, cattle, wild animal, environment, and environmental resource management. Data from OH researchers and publicly accessible government data are less integrated and inconsistently managed across agencies.

Conclusion: The study of OHIM strategic development should consist of four important points: (1) Clarity in the OH concept, (2) OH staff development, (3) development of an OHIM data network and innovation, and (4) research and academic development, and global OHIM academic exchange. All of these points will lead to health system reforms to support social well-being. Keywords: health information management, health, one health information, one health, social well-being, Thailand.

Keywords: health information management, health, one health information, one health, social well-being, Thailand.

Received: 08-01-2021  Accepted: 17-03-2021    Published online: 03-05-2021

Corresponding author: Somsak Amornsiriphong   E-mail: somsak.amo@mahidol.ac.th

DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2021.96-103

Copyright: Youthao and Amornsiriphong This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.