The One Health Initiative at UK will work together with the Cooperative Extension Service to educate agents on the health of people, animals and the environment. 

One Health will draw not only on the over 60 faculty members in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, but also on the entire university community to provide resources, education and research related to the health of people, animals and the environment to further disseminate information important to the state. Areas of importance include biosecurity, food safety and security, zoonosis (diseases spread from animal to man), vector-borne diseases (diseases mainly spread from ticks, mosquitoes and fleas), farm health and safety, plant and tree health, soil health and wildlife. 

The UK One Health Initiative will work with extension, UK colleges of Public Health, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy, State Public Health and other state agencies in educating farmers, county agents, veterinarians, physicians, rural populations and public health workers on the prevention of infectious diseases. Focus groups will be formed with our county agents throughout the state to educate them about the One Health Initiative. These focus groups will also establish the needs of the communities the extension agents represent. The focus groups will help develop recommendations to expand the One Health extension program to better serve UK extension agents and clientele throughout the state. Information gathered from the focus groups will help determine capacity gaps and barriers in the communities and investigate opportunities to bridge extension and One Health.

The presence of extension agents in all 120 counties allows our agents and specialists to serve as the primary extension educational arm of UK, disseminating information about One Health topics, research and emerging diseases throughout the commonwealth.