Companion animals—especially dogs, cats, and birds—may serve as early-warning sentinels for human health risks tied to the triple planetary crisis, according to a correspondence published in The Lancet. The piece, titled "Time to integrate pets in One Health surveillance," highlights how these animals share the human exposome, the total environmental exposures a person encounters, making them uniquely positioned to flag toxic industrial chemicals and emerging infectious diseases.
The triple planetary crisis—climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution—is intensifying threats to human health, the authors argue. A holistic One Health framework that moves beyond traditional wildlife and livestock monitoring could strengthen detection of zoonotic diseases and chemical hazards before they cause widespread illness. The authors specifically note circum-Arctic sled dogs as a key population for study.
Zoonotic diseases, which jump from animals to humans, account for roughly 60% of all infectious diseases. Companion animals live in close proximity to people, often indoors, and can accumulate environmental contaminants in their tissues over time. This shared exposure makes them a logical, yet underutilized, component of public health monitoring systems.
Integrating pets into surveillance networks would require new investments in veterinary medicine, data-sharing protocols, and cross-sector collaboration between human and animal health agencies. The correspondence calls for countries to embed companion animal monitoring into national One Health action plans, though it does not provide specific cost estimates or implementation timelines.
Critics may argue that expanding surveillance to include pets could strain already limited public health resources. Distinguishing signals from noise in companion animal data may also prove challenging without rigorous standardization across species and regions.