The AdVETcacy Umbrella: A One Welfare Framework

The AdVETcacy Umbrella utilizes three unique but complementary disciplines—shelter medicine, community outreach, and public health—to address and promote the human–animal bond by embracing diversity, intersectionality, and a spectrum of care approach. Expanding veterinary practice to advocate for the greatest good for all parties in the human–animal bond and to recognize the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health makes access to veterinary care more achievable. Each discipline under the AdVETcacy Umbrella intervenes at a different stage of the human–animal bond life cycle. Shelter medicine focuses on the creation of the human–animal bond. Community outreach preserves the human–animal bond. Finally, public health protects the human, animal, and environment, therefore protecting the human–animal bond and the space in which it exists. An opportunity to build a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration emerges among shelter medicine, community outreach, and public health professionals due to the unique expertise within these fields of providing welfare to humans and animals alike who operate outside of traditional circumstances. The Diversity Bonus by Scott E. Page argues that integrating diverse backgrounds and ways of thinking can bring something extra to the table that would not have existed otherwise. The integration of experts in each field offers the opportunity for a “diversity bonus” in veterinary medicine where humans, animals, and their bonds are served, fostered and advocated for.