Sustainable Development Goal #3, “health and well-being”, and the need for more integrative thinking

Abstract

Recently, the United-Nations adopted 17 sustainable development goals for the 2030 Agenda. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 “Ensuring a healthy life and promoting well-being for all ages” is one of the most transversal goals, which is interconnected with the other SDGs. The health and well-being are the aim of this goal and also, they are the result of other goals that empower people to develop better in different social, economic and productive areas. The SDG 3 is a multiple and universal resource on which sustainable development policies can be based, in particular for the most needed countries, and can lead to the sustainable maintenance of well-being and health. However, SDG 3 faces a high sectorization, so there is a risk of not being able to achieve the stated objectives. Only a national and international reflection on human population and animal health surveillance devices, environmental health, implementation of appropriate indicators and specific research funding will ensure the balance between the legitimacy of society’s demands and the needs of scientific and medical excellence. The health and well-being indicators that are needed to achieve the agenda goals are based on reliable and relevant quantitative data, which are currently rare or even non-existent in some regions. Therefore, it is now necessary to initiate a more integrative international animal and public health and research strategy in order to collect new data, particularly those relating to current emerging infectious diseases that affect public and animal health, especially in developing countries.