(TRENTON) – At its May 23, 2025, quarterly public meeting, the New Jersey One Health Task Force (OHTF) approved its first Strategic Plan.

New Jersey was the first state in the nation to legislate a One Health initiative by establishing the OHTF (P.L. 2021, Chapter 117). “One Health” is a concept that recognizes the strong connections and interdependencies between human, animal, and environmental health, and calls for a collaborative, multi-sector, and transdisciplinary approach. The OHTF is comprised of members representing a variety of disciplines, including human and veterinary medicine, public health, epidemiology, and academic research. Read more about One Health and New Jersey’s One Health Task Force on the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA) website.

The Strategic Plan sets forth six major goals for the OHTF to accomplish:

1. Strengthening One Health Coordination and Collaboration,
2. Stimulating Interdisciplinary Health Research and Innovation,
3. Developing a One Health Cognizant Workforce,
4. Increasing Public Awareness of the Importance of One Health,
5. Improving Data Accessibility Across Sectors and Disciplines, and
6. Ensuring Sustainability for the One Health Approach in New Jersey.

Each goal is supported by underlying short-term (one-year) or longer-term (3-5 year) objectives. The Task Force’s Strategic Planning Committee will revisit and revise these goals and objectives annually to assess progress.

“Agriculture sits at the crossroads of human, animal, and environmental health,” said New Jersey Agriculture Secretary Ed Wengryn. “From food safety to animal disease to soil and water quality, each challenge we face is deeply interconnected. By addressing them holistically, we can ensure the resilience of our agricultural systems.”

“Through the One Health Task Force, New Jersey is working to advance our scientific understanding of the complex relationships between public health, our environment, and plant and animal health,” New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette said. “This first Strategic Plan will help spur a coordinated, multi-disciplined response to growing threats to wildlife and agricultural commodities, ultimately better protecting public health.”

"Protecting the public’s health requires understanding and responding to diseases and other health threats that spread between people and animals. It also requires recognizing how these challenges impact our globally connected environment,” said New Jersey Department of Health Acting Commissioner Jeff Brown. “This strategic plan puts New Jersey at the vanguard of science and public health, providing a roadmap for building the infrastructure that will undergird this complex and essential work.”  

As reported at the May 23 meeting, several Strategic Plan objectives are actively underway, and more are planned in the near future. The New Jersey OHTF looks forward to its work with the goal of improving the health of New Jersey residents, animals, plants, and ecosystems.

The New Jersey Department of Agriculture also announces the release of a new tool to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration in New Jersey, the OneHealthConnect listserv. Anyone can register for the listserv, and users can choose to receive rolling email updates or weekly digests. The listserv may prove useful in sharing One Health related articles, webinars, and resources; establishing connections between experts in other fields to share data, samples, or ideas; and organizing interdisciplinary projects or grants. 

Sign up for OneHealthConnect here to stay up to date with the NJ One Health initiative!