Each year, the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine brings a leading One Health scholar to campus to address vital health issues from a One Health perspective that is based on the understanding that human, animal, plant, and environmental health are linked. This year, Princeton scholar Laura Kahn, MD, MPH, MP, will give the annual Coppoc One Health Lecture on the topic, “A One Health Analysis of Food Safety and Security, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Climate Change in the 21st Century.” The presentation at 12:30 p.m. on November 7 in Lynn Hall room 1136 is free and open to the public. A reception will follow in the Veterinary Medical Library.
Dr. Kahn holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UCLA and earned her MD at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. She also has a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University. In 2014, the American Association of Public Health Physicians awarded her the Presidential Award for Meritorious Service, and in 2016, the American Veterinary One Health Society presented her with their highest honor, the K.F. Meyer-James H. Steele Gold Head Cane Award, for her work in One Health.
Dr. Kahn served as a research scholar with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs for nearly 20 years. In 2006, she published an article titled “Confronting Zoonoses, Linking Human and Veterinary Medicine”in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases. The article helped launch the One Health Initiative, a global movement promoting the health of all species by increasing communication and collaboration between human, animal, plant, environmental, and ecosystem health professionals.
Recognized as the co-founder of the One Health Initiative, Dr. Kahn also serves as Chair of the Advisory Board for the One Health and Development Initiative, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization working to promote education, advocacy, research, and solutions to interrelated issues of human, animal, and ecosystem health through the integrated One Health approach.
Dr. Kahn says the One Health concept that human, animal, plant, environment, and ecosystem health are linked provides a framework for examining and addressing complex health challenges. She explains that this framework can be represented as a multi-dimensional matrix that can be used as a tool to identify upstream drivers of disease potential in a concise, systematic, and comprehensive way. Her talk will describe and illustrate how the matrix tool might be used to facilitate systems thinking, enabling the development of effective and equitable public policies. The One Health matrix tool illustrates how foodborne illnesses, food insecurity, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change are inter-related. The Coppoc One Health Lecture was established as an annual campus-wide lectureship in 2014 to focus on the symbiotic relationship between veterinary and human medicine and its worldwide impact.
The Lecture Series is named in honor of Dr. Gordon Coppoc, Purdue professor emeritus of veterinary pharmacology, and his wife, Harriet. Dr. Coppoc is the former head of PVM’s Department of Basic Medical Sciences. He also served as director of the Indiana University School of Medicine – West Lafayette and associate dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine before retiring in 2014.
The annual Coppoc One Health Lecture aligns with the Purdue One Health initiative to advance the university’s strengths in human, animal, plant and environmental health, bolstering research, education and engagement thorughout multiple colleges as well as industry and government partnership opportunitites.