Public Health Perspectives on Aquaculture
Nearly half of all seafood consumed globally comes from aquaculture. Increasing seafood consumption has been proposed as part of a strategy to combat the current non-communicable disease (NCD) pandemic, but public health, environmental, social, and production challenges related to certain types of aquaculture production must be addressed. Examining the interactions between aquaculture, fisheries, human diet and health, and ecological health can assist in setting priorities for enhancing human nutrition and the ecological sustainability of aquaculture. Resolving these complicated human health and ecologic trade-offs requires systems thinking and collaboration across many fields; the One Health concept is an integrative approach that brings veterinary and human health experts together to combat zoonotic disease. We propose applying and expanding the One Health approach to facilitate collaboration among stakeholders focused on increasing consumption of seafood and expanding aquaculture production and to prioritize methods that minimize risks to public health, animal health, and ecology. This expanded application of One Health may also have relevance to other complex systems with similar trade-offs.