Remaking One Health: Decolonial approaches to street dogs and rabies prevention in India

Dog-mediated rabies is a major concern in many parts of Asia and Africa, being almost always fatal once symptoms appear. One Health approaches have gained precedence for addressing health problems that cut across humans and animals, especially rabies. India has large street dog populations and carries 35% of the global rabies burden despite long-standing rabies prevention initiatives, including One Health-informed programmes. In this project, we investigate why rabies persists as a public health problem in India. We build on research that suggests that the answer might lie in insufficient understanding of everyday people-dog relations. We will combine human geography, history, behavioural ecology, and social psychology to study people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urban and rural India. Through this, we will generate lessons on making One Health initiatives more effective and ethical, and partner with public health practitioners to develop rabies prevention interventions that are socio-culturally appropriate.