HUNT ONE HEALTH - the world's first large-scale population-wide study of human and animal Health interactions

Humans and animals affect each other’s health in many ways. The world’s first large-scale population-wide study of human-animal health interactions commenced in Norway in the late autumn of 2017. The objective of the project “HUNT One Health” is to dig out new knowledge that can contribute to improved human and animal health. The first putative gold mine is dirt, stool and droppings. The term “One Health” highlights that the health of humans and animals is tightly interwoven, and affected by their shared environments. HUNT One Health is an expansion of HUNT (the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study), a large human population-wide project that has been ongoing since the mid 1980-ies. The parties of HUNT One Health are HUNT (owned by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; NTNU), the Norwegian Veterinary Institute and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). In the initial phase of HUNT One Health, coordinated efforts will focus on sampling from animals and their owners. Droppings will be collected from cattle, pigs, sheep, dogs and horses, while HUNT simultaneously will collect various types of samples, including stools, from humans. The availability of biological research material and associated metadata from animals and the people in contact with the animals is expected to open for a broad range of interesting and high-impact studies in the coming years. The ability to link human and animal microbiotas and other health parameters on a large scale makes this project unique. The research material will be (conditionally) available also to the broad scientific community.