Co-authored by Researcher Zhou Xiaonong, Professor Guo Xiaokui, and Associate Researcher Zhang Xiaoxi, this paper centered on the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Agreement, the commentary proposes two key scientific tools—a Global One Health Index (GOHI) Assessment System and an Economic Evaluation Framework—to provide a quantifiable and precise pathway for global pandemic governance.

Key Suggestion 1: Adopt the Global One Health Index to Accurately Identify High-Risk Areas. The authors advocate for the integration of data on human, animal, and environmental health to build a multidimensional indicator system capable of dynamically assessing the One Health status of different regions. Through index-based ranking, the system can prioritize zoonotic disease hotspots, ecologically fragile areas, and regions with weak health systems, thereby enabling targeted interventions.

Key Suggestion 2: Transition from Cost-Benefit Analysis to Precision Intervention to Reduce Pandemic Response Costs.The commentary notes the current global pandemic response suffers from uneven resource allocation and prohibitively high intervention costs. To address these issues, the authors recommend developing acost-benefit evaluation model for pandemic response measures to systematically quantify the economic value of different strategies. Adynamic economic analysis framework should also be established to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of critical interventions such as early surveillance, vaccine distribution, and border control. Multi-scenario simulation models would provide evidence-based guidance for decision-making, helping avoid inefficient or wasteful one-size-fits-all approaches.

The paper’s opinions are rooted in the authors’ long-term, systematic research in One Health governance. The article emphasizes that the core value of thePandemic Agreement lies in transforming One Health theory into applications, and points out the need for breakthroughs in three key areas:

1. Interdisciplinary collaboration to break down barriers between human medicine, veterinary science, and environmental science, and establish joint surveillance networks;

2. Data sharing to encourage countries to open access to health data and enhance global early-warning systems for outbreaks;

3. Community empowerment to integrate academic tools with local knowledge—for example, through community-based participatory surveillance to reduce early-stage intervention costs.

The authors also call for actions from international communities:

· Launchpilot projects in developing countries to demonstrate the use of the index and economic models;

· Establish aGlobal One Health Fund to support cost-effective measures in low-income countries;

· Align policy frameworks so that index results are incorporated into the resource allocation standards of international organizations like WHO.

Previous research of GOHI

Since 2021, under the leadership of Researcher Zhou Xiaonong and Professor Guo Xiaokui, the research team at School of Global Health, in collaboration with domestic and international partners, has employed theGlobal One Health Index (GOHI) to evaluate global One Health performance. The framework includes:

· External Drivers Index (EDI): Assesses the external social, economic, cultural, and systemic conditions for sustaining One Health development (e.g., Earth system, economy, institutions, society, and technology);

· Intrinsic Drivers Index (IDI): Evaluates One Health practices across human, animal, and environmental interfaces;

· Core Drivers Index (CDI): Measures a country or region’s capacity to address core One Health scientific challenges such as zoonotic diseases, food security, antimicrobial resistance, climate change, and One Health governance.

This tool has been used to systematically assess the One Health development status of over160 countries and regions worldwide, and has also been applied at the sub-national level in countries such asJapan andIndia, providing valuable baseline data to support local One Health capacity building.

Development and Impact of the Global One Health Index

A research team of nearly 50 faculty members and students from Schhol of Global Health and theNational Institute of Parasitic Diseases at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention contributed to the development of GOHI.

Since its launch at the end of 2021, the team has published over a dozen research articles in leading international journals such asInfectious Diseases of Poverty,iScience, andOne Health. One of these papers was selected among theTop 100 Chinese Medical Science and Technology Papers of 2022. A correspondence article outlining the innovative value and application potential of GOHI was published in the prestigious journalNature.

The team’s English-language monograph, titledGlobal One Health Index Report 2022, based on the GOHI findings, was officially published bySpringer in early 2025.