One Health Act of 2016

One Health Act of 2016

This bill requires the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) to coordinate and support a One Health Program to: (1) address infectious diseases in animals and the environment, and (2) help prevent the transmission of infectious diseases between animal populations and human populations.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy, in cooperation with the NSTC, must develop a framework for federal activities under the program. The framework must:

• describe the activities of federal agencies and departments under the program,
• establish goals and priorities for advancing scientific understanding and for workforce development and describe activities to achieve these goals and priorities,
• identify and expand partnerships among federal agencies and others to develop new approaches for reducing hazards to human health from animal and environmental sources and to promote an integrated approach to addressing public health threats in a manner that prevents duplication, and
• provide recommendations for additional action or legislation to assist in establishing the program.

The program must establish an initiative to coordinate and implement federal research and field activities. Program members must support activities described in the framework, including by awarding grants to establish national centers of excellence to carry out those activities.

The President must direct representatives of the United States to advocate that international bodies adopt approaches consistent with the initiative, provide technical assistance to governments to remove unnecessary barriers to investment in similar programs, and use certain targets to measure the effectiveness of such initiatives.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov