ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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USAID One Health Workforce Project
One Health Field 
Attachment Evaluation 
Report
OHW EVALUATION REPORT
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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One Health 
Field Attachment 
Evaluation Report
Project Title
One Health Workforce
Sponsoring USAID Office
GH/HIDN
Award Number
AID-OAA-A-15-00014
Date of Publication
June 2019
This publication was compiled by the One Health Workforce evaluation team. This 
represents a collaborative effort of staff from the University of Minnesota, Tufts 
University, and the One Health Central and Eastern Africa Network. The authors would 
like to acknowledge all of the people who helped with logistics and organization that 
made this evaluation possible. Finally, the authors’ views expressed in this publication 
do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Introduction 
Background
Understanding the One Health Concept 
Defining a "One Health" Workforce 
USAID Efforts for Pandemic Preparedness 
The Field Attachment Program 
Evaluation Scope & Methods
Our Approach
Evaluation Significance
Evaluation Questions
Evaluation Methods
Findings
Contextual Parameters
Contribution to a “One Health” workforce
Faculty Experiences
Pre-Service Workforce Experiences
Community Experiences
Conclusions & Recommendations
References
Appendices
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 6
 6
7
 7
 8
 9
11
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12
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21
23
24
25
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Executive Summary
Background 
Complex infectious disease threats highlight the 
need for educating and training health workers 
that not only have the technical skills and 
competencies to work within their own discipline 
and sector, but also possess skills to work across 
sectors to manage an infectious disease 
outbreak on a global scale. One way to train this 
type of workforce is by utilizing a transdisciplinary 
approach known as One Health; bringing 
together disciplines such as [human] medicine, 
veterinary medicine, public health, nursing, and 
ecology to work together to effectively address 
emerging challenges at the interface of animals, 
humans, and the environment. 
Over the past few years, a number of higher 
education institutions in Africa, working alongside 
the One Health Central and Eastern Africa 
(OHCEA) university network, have developed 
and implemented experiential student training 
programs centered around the One Health Core 
Competencies (OHCC). These programs, called 
One Health Field Attachments (OHFA), are field￾based applied learning experiences that bring 
together students from various health disciplines 
to work with communities to develop and 
implement community-based interventions that 
are informed by a community assessment of 
health priorities.
Description of Evaluation
This report adds to the growing understanding of 
One Health programing by evaluating 6 OHFA 
programs in the OHCEA network (Cameroon, 
Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, 
Rwanda, Tanzania). The purpose of the study 
was to explore how these [implemented and 
ongoing] programs have fostered and contributed 
to the creation of a One Health workforce within 
their respective countries. Using data collected 
from an internal program evaluation conducted in 
2018, this report analyzes the history, design, 
implementation, and outcomes of the programs 
with a particular focus on the outcomes for 
students, institutions, and communities in which 
the programs were situated.
Key Findings
Developing and strengthening a “One Health 
workforce” is a long-term endeavor, and at times 
requires a veritable paradigm shift. For many 
students, the OHFA was their first exposure to 
the One Health concept as well as the idea of 
One Health in action. Some of the key findings 
that emerged from this evaluation were:
Contribution to the Creation of a One Health 
Workforce
Through interviews with students, faculty, and 
community participants, it became clear that the 
One Health Field Attachment program 
contributes to the creation of a One Health 
workforce by:
• Building students’ technical capacity to respond 
to health challenges. 
• Giving students and faculty the space to work 
collaboratively across disciplines.
• Sensitizing universities and communities on the 
One Health concept and One Health in 
practice.
The OHFA program is unique in its very nature in 
that it brings together students from different 
disciplines and has them work together alongside 
community partners to develop needs 
assessments and planned interventions. The 
programs as a whole have the same 
multidisciplinary approach, yet they go about it in 
different ways. Some programs focus more on 
technical knowledge needed to control health 
emergencies, whereas other programs heavily 
complimented this technical training with a strong 
emphasis on collaboration. Finally, while 
communities remain secondary beneficiaries of 
these programs, some community health officers 
and members expressed that they had been 
sensitized on the One Health concept, and how 
to put it into practice.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Faculty Experiences
University faculty play a key role in developing 
the One Health Field Attachment programs within 
their respective countries and universities. 
Faculty who were interviewed view the OHFA not 
only as an opportunity for students, but also see 
it as a form of professional development for 
themselves. In our interviews, faculty were able 
to provide a singular understanding of how the 
programs have been adopted and adapted to 
their country specific contexts, and the 
challenges and successes of these programs. In 
discussions with OHCEA Country Focal Persons, 
OHFA Activity Leads, and faculty participants, the 
following findings came through:
• OHFA programs require faculty who are well 
versed in One Health and can teach and lead 
across a variety of disciplines
• Faculty often act as the “go between” in the 
network/university/community relationships, 
thus gaining important community/stakeholder 
engagement skills
• While the activity is geared towards enhancing 
students’ capabilities and capacities, faculty 
also view the program as professional 
development
Pre-Service Workforce Experiences
Students overwhelmingly had positive things to 
say about their participation in the One Health 
Field Attachment programs. As faculty 
interviewees noted, these programs are popular 
and they often receive a high number of 
applications to attend. In our discussion with 
students, the following themes emerged:
• Students enjoyed the experience overall, but 
different programs prepared them for the field 
experience differently. Some attended a week 
long orientation, or similar, while other 
programs either had no orientation or an 
abbreviated one.
• Many expressed the importance of being able 
to translate what they learn in the classroom 
into work being done in the community.
• The program has been impactful for students 
even after leaving. Many described One Health 
situations they have encountered since leaving 
the program. In some countries, student clubs 
or WhatsApp groups allow students to stay 
connected to each other, and to the 
communities in which they worked.
Community Experiences
Each OHFA works in a community 
Demonstration Site––a community that has 
specifically partnered with the university to host 
the Field Attachment program––though these 
sites looks different across the programs. In 
general, OHFA programs either work with a 
specific community site, or a broad grouping of 
sites within a specific area. In interviewing 
members of the community in which the OHFA 
work, as well as community [government] 
officials, it became clear that these communities 
appreciate the work done through the program. 
Communities expressed some of the following:
• Though the students come as teachers, the 
communities also teach the students
• Communities expressed a desire for more 
direct intervention, but completed many 
interventions themselves
• The link between students and communities 
often extended past the scope of health work
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Introduction
Background 
The complexity of recent infectious disease 
threats has highlighted a critical need for 
educating and training health workers that not 
only have the technical skills and competencies 
to work within their own discipline or sector, but 
also possess skills to work across sectors to 
manage an infectious disease outbreak on a 
global scale (American Veterinary Medical 
Association, 2008). One way to train this type of 
workforce is by utilizing a transdisciplinary 
approach known as One Health. One Health 
brings together disciplines such as [human] 
medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, 
nursing, and ecology to work together to 
effectively address emerging challenges at the 
interface of animals, humans, and the 
environment. Over the past few years a number 
of higher education institutions in Africa––
working alongside the One Health Central and 
Eastern Africa (OHCEA) university network 
funded by the United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID)––have 
developed and implemented experiential student 
training programs centered around the One 
Health Core Competencies (OHCC). These 
programs, called One Health Field Attachments 
(OHFA), are field-based applied learning 
experiences that bring together students from 
various health disciplines to work with 
communities to develop and implement 
community-based interventions that are informed 
by a community assessment of health priorities.
While there is a growing body of literature related 
to One Health education and training, much of 
this research has merely highlighted the need for 
increased multidisciplinary workforce training, or 
has outlined and proposed the processes for 
creating these types of programs. Additional 
research and evaluation work is needed to 
explore the short and long term outcomes from 
One Health focused education and training 
programs, and to inform the development of 
future programs.
This report adds to the growing understanding of 
One Health programing by evaluating 6 OHFA 
programs in the OHCEA network (Cameroon, 
Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, 
Tanzania, and Uganda). The purpose of the 
study was to explore how these [implemented 
and ongoing] programs have fostered and 
contributed to the creation of a One Health 
workforce within their respective countries. Using 
data collected from an internal program 
evaluation conducted in 2018, this report 
analyzes the history, design, implementation, and 
outcomes of the programs with a particular focus 
on the outcomes for students, institutions, and 
communities in which the programs were 
situated. It concludes by suggesting some 
considerations that should be used when 
designing new transdisciplinary health training 
programs, or when revamping existing ones.
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
Project
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Understanding the One Health 
Concept
Most infectious diseases start in animals, move 
to humans, and then spread. Responses to these 
types of outbreaks need to take into account the 
intersection of animal, human, and environmental 
health. The One Health concept is a 
transdisciplinary approach to solving global 
health crises; it recognizes that there is no 
difference of paradigm in the various disciplines 
of health training and advocates for integrative 
thinking to improve disciplinary training while also 
breaking down “silos” (Zinsstaga, Schellinga, 
Waltner-Toews, & Tanner, 2011).
Growing recognition and support for One Health 
resulted in a series of workshops aimed at 
identifying key One Health Core Competency 
domains, which consist of: management; 
communication and informatics; values and 
ethics;
leadership; teams and collaboration; roles and 
responsibilities; and systems thinking (Frankson 
et al., 2016). These competencies have since 
been used “to develop new continuing 
professional education programs for One Health 
professionals and help university curricula 
prepare new graduates to be able to contribute 
more effectively to One Health approaches” (p. 
1).
Defining a “One Health Workforce”
Creation of a One Health workforce requires an 
understanding of the complexities of 
collaboration and what it means to define a 
unified workforce mindset and skill set. To this 
end, a One Health worker is one that has (1) 
technical skills and competencies to work well 
within their own discipline and sector, (2) cross￾sectoral skills and competencies to work 
collaboratively across sectors, and (3) a 
supportive institution to enable their collaborative 
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USAID Efforts for Pandemic 
Preparedness
Over the past decade, the United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID) has actively funded 
One Health education programs in universities in the 
Global South through the creation of cross-border 
university networks (Chapman, Pekol, & Wilson, 2014). 
This is a unique approach in that it influences the 
university-level education and training programs for 
health workers in ways which build personal and 
professional relationships across countries for 
personnel from different fields, disciplines and 
universities. The premise is that these relationships will 
“endure as graduates move into senior professional and 
administrative positions and will provide a basis for 
better epidemic response well into the future” (p. 623).
Since 2014, USAID––via it’s Emerging Threats Division 
(ETD)––has supported university networks through its 
One Health Workforce (OHW) project. In Africa, OHW 
partners with the One Health Central and Eastern Africa 
(OHCEA) university network, based in Kampala, 
Uganda. OHCEA is a collection of 17 universities and 
24 schools and faculties that includes schools of 
veterinary medicine, public health, nursing, and 
medicine, among others. Today, OHCEA works in 8 
countries across the continent: Cameroon, Democratic 
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, 
Tanzania, and Uganda.
The network’s vision is “to be a global leader in One 
Health, promoting sustainable health for prosperous 
communities, productive animals and balanced 
ecosystems. OHCEA seeks to expand the human 
resource base needed to detect and respond to 
potential pandemic disease outbreaks, and increase 
integration of animal, wildlife and human disease 
surveillance and outbreak response systems, through 
innovative pre-service and in-service programs 
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
Project
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The Field Attachment Program
The OHCEA-supported OHFA programs are 
designed to develop multidisciplinary One Health 
student teams who have expertise in their 
respective disciplines and also share a vision 
and commitment to holistic approaches to 
address complex community health problems. 
The program aims to help One Health student 
team members learn expertise in community 
engagement, communication, project 
management, and leadership.
The program involves an intensive field element 
where students live and work in small 
multidisciplinary teams in an identified 
demonstration site. While there, teams work 
closely with community partners to assess 
community strengths and concerns, develop and 
implement interventions based on assessment 
findings, and conduct some type of evaluation of 
the intervention. 
The OHFA program has evolved and adapted 
significantly since its original inception. The 
original proposal came about during the 
RESPOND project as a way to provide 
experiential learning opportunities to students 
and service to the community. The original 
proposed demonstration site was near 
Lubumbashi, DRC, but due to unrest in the 
region, the site and attachment there were never 
implemented.
Following this, faculty in Tanzania and Uganda 
who specialized in community engaged 
scholarship began working to create and 
document what a formal Field Attachment and 
corresponding Demo Site would look like. While 
many universities in the region already have field 
attachment activities, these are usually geared 
toward students of public health, are clinical in 
nature, and don’t offer a One Health component.
The first formal OHFA program was implemented 
in Uganda in 2014 and consisted of mostly 
students of nursing, veterinary medicine, and a 
few MPH students. The program lasted for six 
weeks and was originally intended as a one off 
activity. Due to its popularity, however, it 
continued and eventually spread to other OHCEA 
members countries, beginning with Tanzania.
Photo provided by OHCEA Ethiopia
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
One Health Core Competency Domains Covered in the OHFA Program
A unique aspect of the OHFA program––other than its central focus on multidisciplinarity––is the way in 
which each country adopted and adapted the program to fit its local context. Today, 7 out of 8 partners 
countries have adopted some form of the OHFA program including: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of 
Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. OHCEA has recently made efforts towards 
standardizing the program across the network, but the localized nature of certain aspects made an 
idiographic and contextual evaluation (highlighted in the subsequent section) the best option for 
understanding differences and similarities across countries.
Domain: Collaboration and Partnership
• Promote inclusion of representatives of diverse 
constituencies in collaborations/partnerships
• Contact potential stakeholders and clearly 
articulate the needs, interests, and objectives 
of the collaboration/partnership, the alignment 
of these with the stakeholder’s objectives and 
the expected commitments required of 
participating stakeholders
• Create an environment that fosters innovation 
and creativity
• Develop procedures and processes for joint 
analysis, planning, communication, and 
commitment of decisions into action to achieve 
common goals
• Clearly define joint expectations, 
commitments, roles, responsibilities and 
timelines
• Communicate transparently on decisions, 
lessons learned and ongoing progress and 
challenges
• Ensure information is accessible to everyone
• Seek opportunities to transfer information and 
knowledge among stakeholders and to the 
wider public
Domain: Leadership
• Evaluate project, team and event performance, 
outcomes, and impact to implement 
continuous improvement
• Demonstrate ability to advocate, create 
partnerships, and foster collaboration in OH 
teams
• Make informed decisions in order to move 
forward after collaboration or consensus 
building by multidisciplinary teams
• Facilitate cooperation, mutual trust, team 
function, and commitment throughout an 
outbreak response
• Motivate the outbreak team to work together to 
achieve the agreed upon goals of the team.
Domain: Culture and Belief
• Ability to interact with team members from 
various backgrounds (cultures, disciplines, 
etc.) during outbreak response
• Distinguish between different existing belief 
systems and religious practices among various 
ethnic groups involved in outbreak areas
Domain: Values and Ethics
• Demonstrate willingness to listen to and 
recognize individuals from other disciplines 
and sectors, and to change ideas, opinions or 
approaches based on resulting new 
information or situations
• Identify the different ethical aspects of 
decisions including dilemmas and conflicts of 
interest that exist across disciplines and 
sectors, and take account of these when 
making decisions about team actions
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Evaluation Scope & 
Methods
This report results from a series of small scale 
internal evaluations of the OHFA programs that 
were conducted in 6 OHCEA partner countries 
during 2018. The list of countries includes: 
Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, 
Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. While 
university implementers of the attachments 
routinely conduct assessments after completion 
of the program, these assessments gauge 
student satisfaction with the program and 
technical knowledge gained as a result of the 
fieldwork. As part of its ongoing effort to 
standardize and share best practices across the 
region, OHCEA commissioned evaluations that 
would look to address broader questions that can 
help to situate the attachments in the network’s 
larger goal of creating a workforce able to 
collaborate effectively and efficiently across 
disciplines to manage health outbreaks on a 
global scale. These evaluations also sought to 
liaise with communities that serve as 
demonstration sites, and understand through 
participant interviews how the experience has 
affected their community.
Our Approach
Rather than focusing solely on immediate project 
outputs, this evaluation sought to look at the 
impact of these programs more holistically. In 
doing so, the evaluators decided against a 
completely aggregated approach, instead 
utilizing an idiographic methodology which 
allowed for contextual understanding of the 
program as it exists in different countries, 
universities, and contexts. This approach also 
engages with how students are learning during 
the OHFA process; idiographic evaluation 
“serves decision-makers by providing 
descriptions of learning processes and 
outcomes. Both processes and outcomes are 
assumed to be diverse rather than standard; 
processes are defined by reference to students’ 
actual learning experiences in a teaching￾learning milieu, and outcomes are defined in 
terms of students’ cognitive structures. The 
relation of process to outcome is described in 
terms of the knowledge structures engaged in 
the learning process” (Kemmis, 1978, p.55). 
Evaluation Significance
This evaluation has significant practical, 
conceptual, and methodological implications for 
the field of One Health education and training. 
Practically, this work will be used to provide 
continued adaptation and improvement to the 
OHFA program. It can also highlight best 
practices that can be adopted or spread to other, 
similar programs. Through the vertical study of 
how One Health training programs, such as 
OHFA, are conceived of and implemented at 
various levels (OHW project level, OHCEA 
network level, and country/institutional level), this 
work will engage with programmatic dynamics 
that previously have not been studied along this 
type of axis. 
Conceptually, this type of work, though 
transnational, adopts an idiographic approach 
that favors country context and the study of 
knowledge structures that are engaged via the 
OHFA program. Most [peer reviewed published] 
evaluations or descriptions of One Health 
programming, especially educational 
programming, do not engage with the programs 
in this way. 
Finally, this evaluation has several 
methodological implications for the field of 
evaluation, and specifically evaluation of One 
Health education and training programs. By its 
very nature as a transdisciplinary field, One 
Health advocates for collaboration. Yet case 
studies or programmatic evaluations of One 
Health programming are typically descriptive in 
nature and assess outputs related to technical 
knowledge. The methodology utilized in this 
evaluation not only aimed to explore how 
collaboration is taking place, but also employed 
collaboration in the process of data collection 
and analysis. 
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1. Contribution to the Creation of a One 
Health Workforce
How is the OHFA contributing to the creation 
of an OH workforce, particularly in the areas 
of: fostering multisectoral collaboration, 
education and training of the pre-service 
workforce, and creating an enabling 
environment? 
2. Faculty Experiences
What has been university faculty members’ 
experiences working on the OHFA program? 
What do they view as the successes and 
challenges of the program? Where would they 
like to see the program go from here?
3. Pre-Service Workforce Experiences
What has been the experience of university 
students who are involved in the OHFA? How 
prepared were they for the attachment? What 
types of One Health experiences and technical 
skills do they gain from the program? What 
has been the impact on them following their 
time in the attachment?
4. Community Experiences
What has been the experience of the 
communities who are involved (i.e. serve as 
the field attachment demo site)? What was the 
impact of the activities conducted during the 
attachment? What did the community learn 
from the university participants, and what did 
university participants learn from the 
community? Has this program fostered 
enhanced collaboration between the 
community and the university? What would the 
community like to see in future Field 
Attachments?
5. Program Function, Impact, and 
Sustainability
How does the OHFA program meet its stated 
goals and objectives? Do the goals and 
objectives need to be reevaluated in light of 
potential changes? How does one country’s 
program compare to other countries’ 
programs? What has been the most significant 
impacts from this program? How sustainable 
is the program, or what does it need to be 
sustainable?
Evaluation Questions
This evaluation addresses the following thematic 
questions:
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce Project
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Evaluation Methods
This evaluation involved a multi-disciplinary team of 
evaluators from the OHCEA network, the University of 
Minnesota, and Tufts University. This team has a wide 
array of backgrounds including specialists in both the 
social and health sciences. Members from the 
evaluation team formed small data collection teams in 
each of the countries that were involved. During these 
visits, the data collection teams were joined by the 
OHCEA Country Administrator, OHCEA Focal Persons 
and Activity Leads, as well as former student 
participants of the OHFA programs. The makeup of 
these teams aided in the access of interview 
participants, translation of materials, and also helped to 
provide context to some of the findings.
While in country, the data collection teams interviewed 
university faculty and administration officials, OHCEA 
country representatives, past student participants, and 
members of the community that serve as field 
attachment demo sites. Primary elements of the 
evaluation methodology included:
• Semi structured interviews
• Group interviews
• Phone interviews
• Document analysis and review (program reports 
and plans)
• Online surveys
Following each data collection visit, the teams 
convened to discuss preliminary findings and conduct a 
meta analysis of the collection process in order to 
inform future efforts. These preliminary findings were 
collected and outlined in individual country reports. In 
November 2018, the evaluation team met for a two-day 
meeting in which they synthesized key findings and 
outlined the layout for this comprehensive OHFA report.
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Findings
Contextual Parameters
Prior to discussion of the evaluation questions 
we include here some contextual parameters that 
emerged from our interviews and conversations 
on the program and are relevant to all of the 
evaluation questions being asked.
1. Developing and strengthening a “One Health 
workforce” is a long-term endeavor, and at 
times requires a veritable paradigm shift. For 
many students, the OHFA was their first 
exposure to the One Health concept as well 
as the idea of One Health in action.
2. The OHFA program operates on a tight 
budget and funding for the program comes 
with a degree of uncertainty as the OHW 
project comes to a close. As such, issues and 
challenges discussed during interviews were 
often mentioned in recognition of budgetary 
constraints; recommendations for program 
improvement recognize this caveat.
3. Each OHFA program in the OHCEA network 
is unique and, in many ways, developed 
based upon in country context. Faculty and 
university administration officials were often 
open and honest about the challenges they 
faced in implementing the program based 
upon some of these contexts.
4. The programs are also evolving rapidly. This 
report includes a snapshot of the program as 
it was implemented in 2018, since that time 
countries have further begun to adapt their 
programs to meet the OHCEA OHFA 
guidelines.
Contribution to the Creation of a 
One Health Workforce
Through interviews with students, faculty, and 
community participants, it became clear that the 
One Health Field Attachment program 
contributes to the creation of a One Health 
workforce by:
• Building students’ technical capacity to 
respond to health challenges 
• Giving students and faculty the space to work 
collaboratively across disciplines
• Sensitize universities and communities on 
the One Health concept and One Health in 
practice
The OHFA program is unique in it’s very nature in 
that it brings together students from different 
disciplines and has them work together alongside 
community partners to develop needs 
assessments and planned interventions. The 
programs as a whole have the same 
multidisciplinary approach, yet they go about it in 
different ways. Some programs focus more on 
technical knowledge needed to control health 
emergencies, whereas other programs heavily 
complimented this technical training with a strong 
emphasis on collaboration. Finally, while 
communities remain secondary beneficiaries of 
these programs, some community health officers 
and members expressed that they had been 
sensitized on the One Health concept, and how 
to put it into practice.
Building Technical Capacity
Each program focuses on transdisciplinary 
technical capacity that is needed for students to 
solve emerging health issues in a community. 
While some programs focus on specific health 
technical capacity, one unifying theme across 
programs is emphasizing the importance of 
community entry. The newly distributed OHCEA–
OHFA guidelines outline how to
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Page 15
work with community leaders or those who can 
assist with entry. Additional focus is placed on 
field data collection techniques such as 
interviewing, writing field notes, and analyzing/
evaluating data. While this is an expectation of 
each program, programs vary in orientation 
length. Some students enter the field prepared 
with these skills, and in other programs the skills 
are learned and taught along the way.
Collaborating Across Disciplines
The OHFA program involves bringing together 
students of different disciplines to work together 
to assess and formulate solutions to community 
health problems. This approach, while simple on 
paper, can prove difficult in practice. One 
challenge is the occasional inherent hierarchical 
differences in disciplines that can impede 
collaboration (some programs are offered at the 
undergraduate level, while others are at the 
graduate level). In addition, student interviewees 
remarked additional hierarchical differences that 
sometimes exist between students of medicine 
and other disciplines. 
In many programs, once the group finishes 
orientation and begins the field work, students 
are split into small multidisciplinary groups and 
are each assigned either a task or a village/site 
in which they will work. Creating these types of 
groups ensures that for the interventions and 
reports everyone is “at the table,” and also 
fosters a sense of teamwork. Some past 
participants from the medical (human) field joked 
about their initial heightened sense of ego, which 
they recounted was later put into new 
perspective based upon their work with people 
from other health disciplines.
Upon completion of the OHFA, students said 
they sometimes stay in touch via WhatsApp 
groups and social media. Other OHCEA partners 
countries have created One Health student 
clubs, that allows another way for students to not 
only stay connected, but continue to collaborate 
on community outreach activities. Despite the, at 
times, irremediable persistence of discipline 
siloing, these continued interactions play a role in 
continued collaboration.
One key challenge that emerged from student 
interviews is that having a multitude of disciplines 
working together on a project or intervention 
does not automatically equal collaboration. Some 
students expressed concerns that their 
disciplinary background was not being put to use, 
and/or they were being asked to do something 
(technical) that was outside of their sectoral 
purview.
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
Project
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Creating an Enabling Environment: 
Sensitizing Universities and Communities on 
One Health
Many of the program’s indirect beneficiaries 
remarked that working or participating in the 
OHFA was the first time they were exposed to 
either the One Health concept, or One Health in 
practice. During community interviews, 
community members either used the term One 
Health or remarked on specific One Health 
issues of which students had made them aware 
(such as diseases moving from livestock to 
members of the community). When interviewing 
community level health officials, those from 
public health and animal health sectors 
mentioned that while they traditionally don’t work 
together closely, the program has brought them 
together and spurred some collaboration even 
after its completion.
The emphasis on multisectoral collaboration is 
different in each country. Some approaches that 
interviewees commented on as being successes 
were:
• In Rwanda, the University of Rwanda brings 
students to a more loosely defined site for a 
week. While there they embark on a series of 
day long field visits to different sites each 
day. This OHFA program takes a large 
umbrella approach to One Health, including 
not only health sciences disciplines, but also 
a number of students from the social 
sciences and other non-health related fields.
• In Kenya, there is an emphasis on building 
team dynamics early on. The week long 
orientation includes sessions to acquaint the 
students with one another and to introduce 
them to the different disciplines. Students 
described an activity whereby they are asked 
‘what do you think veterinarians do?’ which is 
then countered with ‘what veterinarians 
actually do” and so on. Many past 
participants described this as not only their 
first interaction with students from other 
disciplines, but also with faculty from different 
disciplines.
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
Project
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Faculty Experiences
University faculty play a key role in developing 
the One Health Field Attachment programs within 
their respective countries and universities. 
Faculty who were interviewed view the OHFA not 
only as an opportunity for students, but also see 
it as a form of professional development for 
themselves. In our interviews, faculty were able 
to provide a singular understanding of how the 
programs have been adopted and adapted to 
their country specific contexts, and the 
challenges and successes of these programs. In 
discussions with OHCEA Country Focal Persons, 
OHFA Activity Leads, and faculty participants, the 
following findings came through:
• OHFA programs require faculty who are well 
versed in One Health and can teach and lead 
across a variety of disciplines
• Faculty often act as the “go between” in the 
network/university/community relationships
• While the activity is geared towards 
enhancing students’ capabilities and 
capacities, faculty also view the program as 
professional development
Creating “One Health” Faculty
An important requirement for a successful field 
attachment program is the involvement of 
community engaged faculty. In many of the 
countries where the OHFA program exists (such 
as Kenya, Uganda, and DRC), universities 
already have strong connections to community 
demonstration sites, and routinely carry out 
discipline specific, clinical, field attachment 
programs. Faculty experiences with these 
programs has positively influenced the OHFA 
program as these instructors provide students 
with information on gaining community entry, and 
respect for community culture. Students 
positively described orientation sessions where 
these topics were covered and showed how they 
were instrumental in doing their fieldwork as well 
as in subsequent field experiences they have 
had in school and for work. In seeing students 
utilize the community entry competencies taught 
during orientation while in the demo site, one 
faculty member noted “that is where you see a lot 
of changes.”
In addition to the importance of community 
engaged scholars, the OHFA also requires 
faculty who have a strong understanding of One 
Health and the ability to put it into practice. While 
most programs bring together students from 
different disciplines, each program differs with 
how to engage these different groups and have 
them work together. In some programs, like 
Rwanda’s OHFA, a large number of faculty also 
attend the activities in the demo site, while other 
programs, such as Kenya’s OHFA, focus on 
fewer faculty. In either situation, it was shown 
that it is imperative that faculty have the ability to 
organize disciplines to work collaboratively, but 
also within their technical area. Students who 
were asked to do work outside of their technical 
area expressed dissatisfaction with these tasks, 
and a feeling of not learning anything. Some 
programs offer an orientation for faculty that not 
only tackles logistical issues, but also issues 
related to enacting One Health once in the 
demonstration site.
Many faculty interviewees voiced the need for 
further sensitization of the academic community 
about One Health and field-based learning. As 
one faculty member said, “if we fail to sensitize 
and engage the faculty and university 
administration to appreciate the OH approach, 
then we will fail.” This emphasizes the need for 
continued engagement among students and 
faculty from multiple disciplines.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Faculty as the “Go Between”
This OHFA program operates along a variety of 
levels: the One Health regional network, the 
country, the university (and it’s associated 
colleges/schools/faculties), and the communities. 
Faculty often act as the connecting force 
between these levels, as do OHCEA Country 
Administrators for logistics. On the one hand, 
faculty have played a role in adopting and 
adapting the OHFA program to their own 
countries and contexts. This has then carried 
back to the network through their participation in 
crafting the OHFA Guide which the network is 
distributing in an effort to standardize the 
program. As outlined above, community engaged 
faculty also play an important role in being the 
conduit between the demonstration site 
communities and the universities. In some 
countries, activity leads, focal persons, and 
country administrators conduct reconnaissance 
efforts prior to the OHFA to inform the community 
of pending dates, and sort out transportation and 
lodging issues.
Operating along these different levels presents 
challenges to the programs. In discussions with 
faculty, some of these challenges that were 
mentioned were:
• OHCEA guidelines and recommendations have 
forced countries to alter aspects of their 
program. While there is a desire to move 
towards the guidelines, in some countries, 
extending the length of the program runs into 
budgetary issues. Overall funding was 
referenced as an issue and a challenge 
throughout, especially when it comes to 
deciding what would be sacrificed in order to 
stay on budget.
• While the multidisciplinary aspect of the OHFA 
is praised, it also leads to a variety of 
challenges. Students come from different 
colleges and universities, and each of these 
are on different schedules and timetables. This 
makes organizing the OHFA difficult, especially 
when multiple colleges are involved.
• Some faculty described logistical challenges 
around coordinating field attachment activities 
with students in remote locations. Budgetary 
constraints often meant that items like 
transportation would have to be cost effective, 
often coming at the expense of comfort. 
(Difficulty getting around was a common 
concern)
“The main challenge is the 
environment. The field is quite 
remote, transport is a problem, 
but also storage of materials, 
and sometimes security. 
Sometimes you encounter 
challenges and sometimes you 
meet people who aren’t 
prepared so you can encounter 
resistance or lack of 
cooperation.”
-Faculty Interviewee
Professional Development Opportunities
Many faculty interviewed for this evaluation 
praised OHFA activities as both powerful student 
learning experiences and important for their own 
professional development. Faculty commented 
on the value of taking infectious disease 
research out of the classroom and into the field, 
where One Health Core Competencies can be 
applied to real world scenarios. These comments 
show faculty also benefit from these activities, 
both in terms of strengthening their ability to 
conduct and teach transdisciplinary and 
community engaged scholarship, but many 
faculty also mentioned that the OHFA programs 
gave them opportunities to publish research 
related to the program.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Pre-Service Workforce 
Experiences
Students overwhelmingly had positive things to 
say about their participation in the One Health 
Field Attachment programs. As faculty 
interviewees noted, these programs are popular 
and they often receive a high number of 
applications to attend. In our discussion with 
students, the following themes emerged:
• Students enjoyed the experience overall, but 
different programs prepared them for the field 
experience differently. Some attended a week 
long orientation, or similar, while other 
programs either had not orientation or an 
abbreviated one.
• Many expressed the importance of being 
able to translate what they learn in the 
classroom into work being done in the 
community.
• The program has been impactful for students 
even after leaving. Many described One 
Health situations they have encountered 
since leaving the program. In some countries, 
student clubs or WhatsApp groups allow 
students to stay connected to each other, and 
to the communities in which they worked.
Preparation for the One Health Field 
Attachment
Prior to working in the demo site, some countries 
have students attend an orientation of varying 
lengths of time. During these orientations 
students attend technical sessions as well as 
sessions on team building, community entry, and 
culture. Following the orientation, those who 
attended said that they felt adequately prepared 
for the field attachment. In fact some even 
described the sessions as “overadequate.” For 
many students, the skills on community entry and 
working within communities proved useful for 
future projects on which they worked. Programs 
such as Rwanda and Tanzania offer a more 
abbreviated orientation for one to two days. 
Many of these students felt that they would have 
been better prepared had they attended a longer 
orientation. As one remarked, a longer time “will 
allow for people from different disciplines to be 
told what to expect, so when they go to the field 
they can work adequately.” This contrasts with 
longer programs, like Kenya, where students 
spend one week gaining technical skills they’ll 
need, but also spend a large amount of time on 
team building activities.
From Classroom to Community
In our interviews with students, two points 
became clear: students value the opportunity to 
work with different disciplines, and to translate 
what they learn in the classroom into work in the 
community. 
For many of the students we spoke with, this was 
the first opportunity to work with students from 
other disciplines. Faculty and staff joked that 
when students first arrive they are hesitant to 
intermingle, but by the end of the OHFA 
programs you can often find them working 
together in groups of different disciplines. As one 
student stated, “when you’re in a multidisciplinary 
group, be humble, and listen to others, let them 
express themselves and you can learn much 
from them.” Another added that “in a 
multidisciplinary team you can more easily find 
answers to the questions that the community 
asks you.” 
This focus on mixing disciplines isn’t always easy 
to achieve, however. In our interviews, some 
students remarked that they were unsure of the 
One Health idea, and whether or not certain 
health sciences should have a say on issues 
related to human health. Others countered that 
the issue may be related to personalities: “I 
wouldn’t say it was interdisciplinary conflict, it 
was maybe personal conflict. Personalities in a 
pot, it’s bound to boil. But it was still workable, it 
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Page 20
Students were also positive about their 
interactions with the community. Aside from using 
their technical knowledge to help solve health 
problems, students also learned a great deal 
about community culture and traditional 
practices. Those interviewed mentioned that this 
focus on community entry and ways to sensitize 
on health issues will be helpful (or has been) in 
their future careers. On community skills, one 
student remarked, “I will apply it. Each time I go 
to talk to communities, I will refer and modify my 
messaging based on what I learned.”
“We didn’t know what One 
Health was until we came here 
for the Field Attachment. Now, 
once you see something, you 
think about how to tackle it from 
a One Health perspective.
Experiences Beyond the Field Attachment
Many of the students we interviewed had 
completed the OHFA program in the preceding 
years, but spoke about it passionately and 
enthusiastically. The program was usually 
described as a positive experience and one that 
endowed students with a new set of skills and 
competencies that some have begun to utilize in 
their professional careers.
One of the key aspects of the OHFA is to foster 
collaboration, and in some countries that 
continues after the program ends. For 
universities that host student clubs or official 
WhatsApp groups, students are able to maintain 
the connections they made during the program. 
But sometimes, even with these in place, 
students maintain appreciation for collaboration, 
but are missing the opportunities to do so. 
Barriers to collaboration can sometimes be 
simply explained by geography, schools of 
veterinary medicine and human medicine are 
often far apart from one another.
Some students have used the community entry 
skills to work on other projects in rural or remote 
communities. One woman described obtaining a 
short-term job training others on these skills 
before they attended a similar field experience. 
Another skill that is utilized after the program is 
the consideration of One Health, and how that 
affects their diagnoses. A nursing student 
explains that when a patient presents with certain 
problems, he may begin wondering if that patient 
also lives with animals or livestock, from which a 
disease could be transmitted.
Many students expressed a desire to be 
engaged beyond the life of the program. Some 
requested the opportunity to revisit the 
demonstration sites to evaluate their efforts and 
see whether any interventions have been 
implemented. Others suggested that the 
universities and/or governments should utilize 
their skills working in multidisciplinary teams to 
tackle infectious disease outbreaks and other 
health challenges within their communities.
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
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Community Experiences
Each OHFA works in a community demonstration 
site, though these sites looks different across the 
programs. In general, OHFA programs either 
work with a specific community site, or a broad 
grouping of sites within a specific area. In 
interviewing members of the community in which 
the OHFA work, as well as community 
[government] officials, it became clear that these 
communities appreciate the work done through 
the program. 
Communities expressed some of the following:
• Though the students come as teachers, the 
communities also teach the students
• Communities expressed a desire for more 
direct intervention, but completed many 
interventions themselves
• The link between students and communities 
often extended past the scope of health work
At the outset of the evaluation, some faculty and 
past student participants expressed concern that 
communities that serve as the demonstration site 
multiple times become overburdened or 
oversaturated. In speaking with communities, 
none expressed this concern and many were 
enthusiastic about being part of the program. To 
paraphrase one community member, he wished 
the students could come every month, as 
opposed to annually. Despite this, some 
universities and OHFA are looking to change 
sites.
Community as Teachers
While students noted their role as collaborating 
with communities to conduct a needs 
assessment, they also saw themselves as 
educating the community on health issues 
specific to them. In doing this, the students 
viewed themselves as health educators. But in 
talking with the community it became clear that, 
while they did learn a great deal from the 
students, they also saw themselves as serving 
an important role in teaching the students about 
localized health concerns and community 
approaches to dealing with those concerns. As 
one community member said, “when the students 
came to teach us about pasture management, 
they didn’t know that we have
Photo by Kendra Grahl, USAID One Health Workforce 
Project
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Page 22
traditional ways to manage pastures, so I think 
the students learned something from that. Maybe 
students didn’t know about conflicts between the 
humans and wildlife, but they learned about this 
from us.”
Interventions in the Community
While the central aim of the OHFA is not clinical 
or focused on implementing interventions, some 
programs do respond to health issues as they 
arise. In 2018, the Rwanda OHFA was 
interrupted by an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever 
within its demo site. The program used this 
challenge as an opportunity to provide students 
with experience directly responding to an active 
outbreak. In return, the community received a 
tangible benefit, which they mentioned in our 
interviews.
During the OHFA, students are often broken into 
smaller groups to develop a community health 
needs assessment. Occasionally, these 
assessments lead to small interventions, such as 
vaccinating dogs against rabies in the Tanzania 
OHFA. Other times, the assessments provide a 
blueprint for an intervention that can be carried 
out at a later time. In Kenya, communities 
worked with students to create a plan to reduce 
bed bugs, to design and build toilets, and to 
reduce their dog’s consumption of potentially sick 
livestock. In these instances, communities were 
able to either locate outside funding for the 
project, or funded and built them themselves.
Many communities expressed a desire for more 
direct interventions, such a bringing medicines, 
or supplying vaccines for future use. Many of the 
network’s OHFA programs play a delicate 
balancing act in outlining community needs, 
creating plans, and acting when possible without 
moving the program into the category of direct 
intervention.
Link Between Students, Communities, and 
the University
Many communities form a strong bond with the 
students that extends beyond the life of the 
program. In conducting the evaluation site visits, 
our teams consisted or students that had 
previously participated in the OHFA program, 
community residents were excited to see the 
students return, and students were able to see 
the impact of their needs assessments and 
intervention plans.
Nearly every community expressed gratitude to 
the students and universities who participate in 
the OHFA, and many encouraged them to come 
more frequently. In Tanzania, community 
members expressed a desire to begin hosting 
students in their homes to help them fully 
integrate. In Kenya, communities described the 
university students as being inspirational to their 
own children, and encouraged the university to 
plan the OHFA program around a time when the 
primary and secondary schools are on holiday, 
so that the university students could act as 
mentors to the children living in the 
demonstration site. 
Many suggested that there is a need for more 
consistent and frequent communication with the 
university. In order for the community to be active 
in the planning process for student field 
attachments, there is a need for better 
communication. When OHFA programs end, 
communities are not always engaged on 
findings. In Rwanda, the university hosts a mini￾conference which allows people to come and see 
the students present, but for larger countries 
where demonstration sites are more remote, this 
isn’t always an option. Some communities 
suggested they organize themselves to begin 
disseminating the knowledge they gained from 
the program, and share it with nearby 
communities and towns. Additionally, community 
members suggested that student field 
attachments last longer to allow for more 
engagement between the students and 
community.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Page 23
Conclusions & 
Recommendations
Based upon the findings of this evaluation, we 
have developed the following conclusions and 
recommendations that can help to strengthen the 
One Health Field Attachment program and aid its 
sustainability and effectiveness moving into the 
future.
Program duration matters.
Some of the most successful OHFA programs 
that we looked at were the ones that lasted for 
longer than one week. This allowed time for 
students to acclimate to the communities in 
which they were working, and also gave the 
communities time to work with the students. 
These programs also often included an extended 
orientation, during which students gained the 
necessary technical and soft skills (team 
building, community entry) that they would once 
they entered the demonstration site. 
Understandably, programs face budgetary 
constraints, but extending short term programs is 
a worthwhile endeavor. It should also be noted 
that the original field attachment lasted for well 
over a month before being reconfigured. Many 
students and faculty we spoke with agreed that 
2-3 weeks allowed for a meaningful experience.
Team building should be a priority 
focus before students enter the 
field.
A central component of the OHFA is collaboration 
among a variety of disciplines. Students enjoyed 
the experience of working across sectors and 
disciplines, but noted the importance of respect 
and understanding in doing so. To that end, 
programs could benefit from extended team 
building exercises during orientation and 
throughout the OHFA.
Students should be continuously 
engaged, even when the program 
ends.
Students valued the skills and competencies they 
gained during the OHFA program. Many 
remarked that they utilize these skills in their 
studies or work. For others, they value the skills 
but don’t always have similar opportunities to 
collaborate on a One Health project. Universities 
should continue to foster this collaborative spirit 
by supporting existing or creating new student 
clubs or using social media to allow students to 
stay connected formally. Additionally, 
consideration toward utilizing these students 
groups for future community work or infectious 
disease outbreak responses could be useful.
Engage communities throughout 
the process.
Communities appreciate the OHFA program and 
see themselves not just as beneficiaries, but also 
as teachers to the students. Communities 
requested additional involvement in program pre￾planning, as well as being engaged post￾program. Materials and reports should be shared 
with the community, and universities should 
consider budgeting a post-OHFA return where 
students can present findings, and evaluate the 
impact of their work.
Champion One Health leaders.
This program wouldn’t exist without strong One 
Health faculty leaders who developed and 
adapted the program. These leaders, experts on 
One Health and community engaged 
scholarship, should be utilized by the regional 
network to share and educate across the region, 
including in helping shape and adapt OHFA 
programs in other countries. As countries begin 
standardizing according to the OHCEA OHFA 
guidelines, using these One Health leaders can 
be especially useful.
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
References
American Veterinary Medical Association. (2008). One health: A new professional imperative. Retrieved 
from American Veterinary Medical Association website: https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/
Reports/Pages/One-Health.aspx. 
Chapman, D.W., Pekol, A., & Wilson, E. (2014). Cross-border university networks as a development 
strategy: Lessons from three university networks focused on emerging pandemic threats. 
International Review of Education, 60(5), 619-637.
Frankson, R., Hueston, W., Christian, K., Olson, D., Lee, M., Valeri, L., Hyatt, R., Annelli, J., & Rubin, C. 
(2016). One health core competency domains. Frontiers in public health, 4, 192. 
Kemmis, S. (1978). Nomothetic and Idiographic Approaches to the Evaluation of Learning. Journal of 
Curriculum Studies, 10(1), 45-59.
Zinsstag, J., Schelling, E., Waltner-Toews, D., & Tanner, M. (2011). From “one medicine” to “one health” 
and systemic approaches to health and well-being. Preventive veterinary medicine, 101(3-4), 
148-156.
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Appendix 1: Faculty Interview Guide
Faculty Member Background Information
Name:
Email:
Country:
Discipline:
Professional designation:
Junior faculty member
Mid-level faculty member
Senior faculty member
# of years of teaching experience: ____
# of years worked at current university: ____
Faculty Reflections
1. How have you supported One Health student field attachments? 
2. What was the most recent field attachment that you supported? 
Overall Field Attachment Evaluation
3. Which aspects of the field attachment are most successful? Why?
4. Which aspects of the field attachment program would you improve if you could?
5. What do you hope that students will learn/take away from their field attachment experience?
6. What do you hope that community members will learn/take away from this experience?
Personal/Faculty Engagement
7. What have you personally and professionally gained as a result of your participation in the field 
attachments?
8. How has your involvement with the One Health field attachment program influenced your teaching, 
research, or outreach work, if at all?
9. Would you recommend this experience to your colleagues who have not participated in the field 
attachment? 
10. What challenges/limitations do you face in supporting field attachment activities?
11. Have you written any publications or reports as a result of your participation in field attachment 
activities? If not, would you like to? How can OHCEA support you?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
University-Community Relationship
12. How would you describe your university’s relationship with community members who live in the field 
attachment sites? How has this relationship changed over time? Do you expect this relationship to 
continue over the long-term?
13. Apart from the field attachment activities, have you engaged these community members in other types 
of activities? If so, please describe.
Sustainability
14. Would you like the field attachment program to continue after the OHW project ends?
15. What challenges to you anticipate your university will face in sustaining the One Health field 
attachment program?
16. What steps can/should your university take to ensure that the field attachment program continues? 
Realistically, what aspects of the field attachment program, if any, do you expect to continue after the 
OHW project ends?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Appendix 2: Student Group Interview Guide
Field Attachment Preparation
1. What year did you participate in the OH field attachment program?
2. Was there a training or orientation before the field attachment?
3. How do you feel this orientation prepared you for the field attachment?
4. Did your orientation address any technical issues?
5. Did your orientation address any potential personal health and safety issues for participants? If yes, 
please describe.
6. What, if anything, did you learn about the community prior to your arrival at the field site?
7. Did you have any interaction with community members prior to your arrival at the field site?
8. Were you given any pre-departure assignments or homework to complete before your arrival at the 
field site? If so, please describe.
9. How prepared were you for the field attachment?
10. How could your university better prepare students for their field attachment experiences?
11. Do you have any recommendations for things future students can do to prepare themselves for similar 
field attachments?
Field Attachment Activities & Engagement
12. What types of activities did you participate in as part of your field attachment experience?
13. Did you work with students from other disciplines? 
14. If so, what did you gain from working with other disciplines?
15. What was challenging about working with other disciplines?
16. What type of follow-up activities did you participate in, if any?
17. Have you had any interaction with community members since your field attachment ended? If so, 
please describe.
18. Would you like to continue working with these community members? If so, how
Reflection & Impact
19. How valuable was this overall field
attachment experience for you? Why?
20. Which aspects of the field attachment program were most valuable?
21. How could future field attachment programs be improved (what topics, activities, etc.
would be helpful)?
22. What have you personally and professionally gained as a result of your participation?
23. Is a One Health approach relevant to your current or future career? How so?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
24. Have you applied (or do you expect to apply) the knowledge and skills you gained from this field 
attachment to your current educational and academic activities? If so, please give examples.
25. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Appendix 3: Community Stakeholder Focus Group Interview Guide
This focus group guide includes a list of thematic topics and questions beneath each. There is no need to 
follow these in order, rather the themes are to be used to structure the focus group conversation. Please 
do your best to cover all topics, however it is only necessary to address the questions that are most 
relevant to the conversation.
Field Attachment Activities & Engagement
1. What is your understanding of the purpose of this student field attachment program?
2. To your knowledge, what are the goals of the student field attachment program?
3. Take a moment to explain the One Health student attachment program. The One Health student field 
attachment program is a field-based learning opportunity for students to apply One Health skills and 
competencies that they have learned in the classroom. Through community engagement and real-world 
scenarios, students gain hands-on and practical experience and knowledge. The intent is that individuals 
who once participated as students in field attachments will pull from this experience in their careers 
following graduation.
4. What types of activities do students and faculty do when they visit?
5. Do OH field attachment programs focus on new topics and activities each time?
6. Did members of your community have any input in determining these topics or activities?
7. If any of you were involved in any of these activities, can you give us some description of your 
participation?
8. Have the field attachments been helpful to your community?
9. Can you provide some examples of the ways in which the field attachments have been helpful to the 
community?
10. What has been the most important contribution that students have made to this community?
11. How have they not been helpful?
12. How could field attachment topics or activities be improved to be more helpful?
Community Impact
13. What types of health issues does this community face?
14. Do any student and faculty activities help address these issues? Which ones? How so?
15. Has this experience changed the way your community deals with health issues? How so? 
16. Have any activities or initiatives been sustained after students and faculty have left your community? 
17. Any specific activities or projects?
18. If they are being sustained, what is being done to sustain them?
19. If not, what could be the reason(s) they were not sustained?
20. How could these activities be sustained?
Student & University Impact
21. In your perspective, how do students benefit as a result of their participation in activities in the 
community?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
22. How do you believe these field attachments support student learning?
University-Community Engagement
23. How satisfied are you with the relationship between the universities and this community?
24. Can you provide any stories or anecdotes that highlight this positive working relationship with the 
university?
25. How could the relationship between the universities and this community be improved or expanded?
26. How could the OH field attachment program benefit more/other members of your community?
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ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE FIELD ATTACHMENT EVALUATION REPORT
Appendix 4: Data Collection Tool for Process Documentation
Planning Process:
Probe to establish who was involved in planning (number of persons, disciplines, gender, etc); how 
(basis) participants were determined; facilitator(s); role played by the institution(s), USU partners, and 
OHCEA Secretariat; when planning started; etc.
Preparation: 
Establish how preparations were made for development of SOWs for USU support, development of 
concept note, budgeting and forecasts, selection of participants, selection/ identification of facilitators and 
supervisors, identification of logistics
Quality Assurance:
Establish whether implementation adhered to the work plan (timing, beneficiaries / participants, process, 
outputs and deliverables); in case of deviation probe to find out why; what made the activity One Health?
Technical support:
Probe to establish respondents’ attitude towards technical support received from USU Partners, OHCEA 
Secretariat, and Institutions during planning and implementation of the activity: adequacy, timing, 
appropriateness, technical competence, etc; attitude towards non-technical support (administrative/
logistical and financial); support needed that was not available/ provided; support needed to implement 
next steps for the activity; 
Possible areas for process improvement:
Solicit views on possible areas for improvement: planning, implementation, approach, technical support, 
non-technical support, post implementation activities, etc. 
University & Field Attachment Information (from faculty leads only)
(Interviewer: Please fill in as much of this information as you can before the interview)
University Information:
1. University name:
2. How many different schools/faculties participate in the field attachment program? _____
3. Which disciplines/academic programs participate in the field attachment program (select all that apply):
a. Veterinary medicine/Animal science
b. Public Health
c. Medicine
d. Pharmacy
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e. Nursing
f. Environment/Ecosystem/Wildlife Health
g. Other (specify, e.g. One Health Institute)
Description of Field Attachment Program:
4. When (in what year) did your university start the One Health field attachment program?
5. How many different community/field/demo sites are part of your OH field attachment program?
6. How often does your university conduct field attachments?
7. How many One Health student field attachments has your university conducted to date?
8. What is the duration of a typical field attachment?
9. Approximately how many faculty members support each field attachment?
10. Approximately how many students participate in each field attachment?
11. Is participation in a OH field attachment a requirement for students?
12. At what stage of their academic program do students participate in a field attachment? (e.g. at the 
beginning of the program, at the end of the program, every year of the program, etc.)?
13. What sort of pre-requisites (what prior courses or student status) do students need to meet in order to 
participate?
Description of Field Sites
Field Site #1:
a. Name and location of field site:
b. Is this an established One Health demonstration site? Yes/No
i) If yes, when (in what year) was this site designated as a One Health demo site?
c. Why was this site chosen (e.g. what One Health issues are represented)?
d. How often does your university conduct field attachments at this site (e.g. every semester, every year, 
etc.)?
e. How many field attachments have taken place at this site to date?
f. What other university activities take place at this site (e.g. faculty research, student outreach activities, 
etc.)?
Field Site #2 (if applicable):
a. Name and location of field site:
b. Is this an established One Health demonstration site? Yes/No
i) If yes, when (in what year) was this site designated as a One Health demo site?
c. Why was this site chosen (e.g. what One Health issues are represented)?
d. How often does your university conduct field attachments at this site (e.g. every semester, every year, 
etc.)?
e. How many field attachments have taken place at this site to date?
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f. What other university activities take place at this site (e.g. faculty research, student outreach activities, 
etc.)?
Field Attachment Components
14. Do students participate in a pre-attachment training/orientation? 
a. If so, how long is the orientation? 
b. Where does it take place?
15. What topics do the pre-attachment trainings/orientations address? Select all that apply.
a. An introduction to the One Health concept
b. One Health core competencies
c. Cross-cultural awareness & communication
d. Information about the local community & health issues
e. Personal health and safety issues
f. Other (please describe)
16. Which One Health core competencies are explicitly addressed during field attachment trainings? 
(check all that apply)
a. Collaboration & Partnership
b. Systems Thinking
Leadership
c. Management
d. Communication
e. Policy & Advocacy
f. Culture and Beliefs
g. Values & Ethics
h. Gender
i. Research
17. Which activities are part of the field attachment program? (check all that apply)
a. Informational meetings or interviews (with whom?)
b. Research/health assessments
c. Outreach activities/campaigns
d. Intervention/Innovation
a. design/proposal
b. implementation
c. evaluation
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e. Report writing
f. Presentations (to whom?)
g. Other (specify)
18. Do field attachments involve group work?
a. If so, how are student groups organized (e.g. mixed gender & disciplines)?
19. How is student performance evaluated?
20. What follow up, if any, is done with the community members? (e.g. Do students return to the 
community to share their findings or implement their innovations?)
21. Do students reconvene after the field attachment to reflect on their experience? If so, please describe.
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University of Minnesota
120 LES Bldg
1954 Buford Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA
Phone
+1 (612) 626-9625
Email
ohw@umn.edu
Twitter
@OneHealthW
Website
z.umn.edu/onehealth
ONE HEALTH WORKFORCE