Study links social entrepreneurship to stronger One Health learning
Bottom line
A new Frontiers in Veterinary Science study suggests that adding social entrepreneurship to a One Health and Global Food Security course may strengthen how students learn climate, food systems, and systems-thinking concepts. Researchers Brianna Parsons and Brittany Watson analyzed matched pre- and post-course survey data from 20 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students enrolled in the course across 2024 and 2025 at the University of Pennsylvania. They found significant gains in students’ self-rated knowledge across six topics, including One Health, sustainability, global food security, and impact assessment, along with improved rubric-scored definitions of social entrepreneurship. Students also rated the course’s pitch presentation and case study project as especially helpful, and many said they were likely to use social entrepreneurship in the future and recommend it as a tool for climate action. (frontiersin.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals and educators, the paper adds to a growing conversation about how to move One Health teaching from theory into practice. The authors argue that social entrepreneurship can serve as an application-based framework for operationalizing systems thinking, which is a persistent challenge in One Health education. That may be especially relevant as veterinary schools and allied health programs face pressure to prepare learners for climate-linked, food-system, and cross-sector health problems that don’t fit neatly within traditional curricula. Related recent health education research has also found strong demand for more climate and planetary health content, while highlighting the need for practical, practice-relevant teaching approaches. (frontiersin.org)
What to watch: Whether larger, multi-institution studies can show that this kind of curriculum change improves not just student confidence, but longer-term professional competencies and cross-sector problem-solving. (frontiersin.org)
A newly published study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science points to a practical way of teaching One Health and climate-related content: pair it with social entrepreneurship. In a retrospective analysis of a One Health and Global Food Security course, researchers found that students reported significantly stronger knowledge after the course and showed improved understanding of social entrepreneurship as a tool for applying systems thinking to complex health and food-system problems. (frontiersin.org)
The paper comes at a time when veterinary and health education programs are under growing pressure to prepare students for interconnected challenges spanning animal health, public health, food security, sustainability, and climate change. One Health has become a common framework for that work, but educators have long wrestled with how to make it concrete for learners. Earlier educational literature in veterinary medicine has described the value of One Health teaching while also underscoring the difficulty of moving beyond introductory concepts into applied, interdisciplinary problem-solving. (frontiersin.org)
In the new study, Brianna Parsons and Brittany Watson evaluated matched pre- and post-course surveys from 20 students who took the course in 2024 and 2025. The cohort included undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. According to the paper, self-assessed knowledge increased significantly across six areas: food systems, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, One Health, global food security, and impact assessment. Students’ rubric-graded definitions of social entrepreneurship also improved significantly, and they identified the pitch presentation and case study project as high-impact parts of the course. The authors conclude that social entrepreneurship may offer an application-based paradigm for strengthening systems thinking in One Health education. (frontiersin.org)
While direct outside commentary on this specific paper appears limited so far, the findings align with broader trends in climate and health education. A recent mixed-methods evaluation of the “Medicine for a Changing Planet” curriculum found that learners wanted climate and planetary health teaching that was not just big-picture, but also usable in real practice settings. NC State’s Global One Health Academy strategic plan likewise reflects institutional momentum behind expanding One Health education across disciplines, including veterinary medicine, in response to climate, land-use, and food-system pressures. Taken together, that suggests Parsons and Watson’s emphasis on applied learning is landing in a field already looking for more actionable teaching models. (frontiersin.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is less about launching startups and more about how future clinicians, public health veterinarians, and animal health leaders are trained to work across systems. Veterinary teams increasingly encounter the downstream effects of climate stress, food insecurity, production pressures, and ecosystem change, especially in herd health, preventive medicine, public health, and community practice. A curriculum that helps learners connect those issues to implementation, stakeholder engagement, and measurable impact could make One Health training more relevant to day-to-day decision-making and to conversations with producers, policymakers, and pet parents alike. That said, this was a small study from a single course, so the findings are best read as promising early evidence rather than a definitive blueprint. (frontiersin.org)
The study also highlights a familiar tension in professional education: students may leave a course feeling more capable, but institutions still need evidence that those gains translate into better long-term performance. The current analysis relied on participant-matched surveys and rubric scoring, not downstream measures such as career behavior, interdisciplinary collaboration outcomes, or practice change. Other climate-health education studies have similarly noted limits around sample size, generalizability, and the challenge of linking educational interventions to sustained professional impact. (frontiersin.org)
What to watch: The next step is whether educators test this model in larger cohorts, across multiple institutions, and in veterinary-specific settings, with outcomes tied not only to knowledge gains, but also to applied competencies, collaboration, and workforce readiness. (frontiersin.org)