Center for Pet Family Well-Being

2026 One Health Systems Summit

A large summit conference filled with engaged attendees seated in rows, watching a presentation on pet family well-being. A speaker stands at the front beside a screen displaying One Health concepts, while participants take notes, listen attentively, and connect across disciplines focused on supporting people and their pets.

2026 One Health Systems Summit

October 31, 2026 |  San Antonio, TX
Pre-Conference Workshop  |  2026 APHA Annual Meeting and Expo

Logo for Center for Pet Family Well-Being. It features a grid of four icons: a magnifying glass over a graph, a medical cross, a lightbulb over an open book, and a person holding a dog. The text reads 'CENTER for PET FAMILY WELL-BEING' with the tagline 'Advancing One Health Systems for Families and Communities'.
Logo for APHA 2026 Annual Meeting & Expo. The '0' in 2026 is a camera aperture icon.

REGISTER TODAY

The One Health Systems Summit is a one-day, plenary-only convening that brings together leaders from across health, housing, social services, animal welfare, education, and policy to address the structural failures affecting families with pets. Held as a pre-conference workshop at the 2026 APHA Annual Meeting and Expo—the largest public health gathering in the United States—the Summit is designed not as a traditional conference, but as a field-building movement focused on redesigning governance, policy, workforce integration, and funding structures so that systems better reflect the needs of modern families.

Download the One Health Systems Summit brochure.

The One Health Systems Summit at a Glance

TimeSession
8:00 – 8:30amArrival & Informal Networking
8:30 – 8:50amWelcome & Framing
Why One Health Systems — and Why Now
8:50 – 9:35amOpening Keynote
From Fragmentation to Alignment: Why Systems Must Change
– Dr. Amalie Ramirez, MPH, Director of Institute for Health Promotion Research
9:35 – 9:45amModerator Bridge
Connecting Structural Urgency to the Human–Animal Bond
9:45 – 10:40amSession I — The Human–Animal Bond
Why the Bond Matters to Systems, Not Just Individuals
– Panelists: Christine Kim, Executive Director, My Dog is My Home; Vanessa Ashall, Human-Animal Interaction Technical Leader, Waltham; Dr. Rustin Moore, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University
10:55 – 11:50amSession II — How Systems Assume Family—and When Systems Collide (Part 1)
Design Choices, Legal Frameworks, and Their Consequences
– Panelists: Ross Barker, Director, Pet-Inclusive Housing Initiative, Michelson Found Animals; Dr. Pamela D. Byce, Associate Dean and Executive Director, Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School; Dr. Meghan Davis, Chair, Master of Public Health Program, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
12:00 – 12:50pmSession III — How Systems Assume Family—and When Systems Collide (Part 2)
Design Choices, Legal Frameworks, and Their Consequences
– Panelists: Dr. Ingrid Taylor, Director of Guidelines, American Animal Hospital Association; Dr. Kyle Hill, Assistant Professor, Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota; Dr. Michelle Evason, Director, Education & Outreach for Antech Diagnostics, Mars Petcare, Science & Diagnostics
12:50 – 1:45pmLunch
1:45 – 2:30pmSession IV — What We Learned in Real Time.
Insights from the Pop-Up One Health Clinic
– One Health Clinic Team
2:45 – 3:35pmSession V — Why Are We Not Aligned.
Incentives, Regulation, and Structural Barriers
– Panelists: Anna Stout, Executive Director, AlignCare Health Inc.; Kelly Bremken, MSSW, LCSW, Veterinary Social Worker, Oregon Humane Society; Jessica Simpson, Public Policy Specialist, Humane World for Animals
3:50 – 4:35pmSession VI — What Aligned Systems Would Require.
Governance, Workforce Integration, and Sustainable Models
– Panelists: Dr. Emily McCobb, Professor, Accessible Veterinary Care, One Health Institute, University of California, Davis; Dr. Katie Kuehl, Associate Professor, Shelter Medicine & Outreach at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine; Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Professor, University of Manitoba; Dr. Jon Geller, Adjunct Faculty, Colorado School of Public Health
4:40 – 5:15pmSession VII — From Vision to Action + Closing
What Changes Because This Summit Happened
– Dr. Michael Blackwell, Founder & Director, Center for Pet Family Well-Being

The morning sessions diagnose how systems define family, where those definitions collide with reality, and what the resulting fragmentation looks like in practice. The afternoon shifts to repair: examining lessons from a Pop-Up One Health Clinic, identifying the structural barriers to alignment, exploring working models, and building a shared action agenda.

Logo for ONE health CLINIC. 'ONE' is red, 'health' is teal, and 'CLINIC' is white on a purple bar.
A smiling woman in green scrubs with closed eyes embraces a dog that is licking her neck. The dog has light brown and white fur and a blue collar.

Delivered in partnership with the University of Washington Center for One Health Research, Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, The Street Dog Coalition, and Street Medicine San Antonio the Pop-Up One Health Clinic will be held concurrently with the Summit as a real-time systems stress test.

By integrating human health care, veterinary services, and social supports in one setting, the clinic reveals where systems function effectively and where gaps persist. Insights from the clinic will be shared during Session IV, anchoring the afternoon’s structural discussions in direct, lived experience.

Logo with purple handprint, paw print, green leaves, and a snake on a black background.
Logo for Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Features a red stylized cougar head with 'WSC' and the text 'Healthy Animals. Healthy People. Healthy Planet. College of Veterinary Medicine'.
A large, bold, purple capital letter W on a white background.
Black and white logo illustration of a happy dog and a cat, with the text 'The Street Dog' below.
Logo for Street Medicine San Antonio. It shows a green backpack with a white heartbeat line on it, and the text 'STREET MEDICINE SAN ANTONIO' and 'an imago dei parvias ministry'.

Who Should Attend

The Summit convenes professionals across four sectors whose collaboration is essential to systems change:

Health and Well-Being

Veterinarians, clinicians, public health professionals, social workers, mental health providers, animal welfare leaders, and animal control officers

Education, Policy and Research

Animal law scholars, policy researchers, veterinary and medical schools, think tanks, and community outreach programs

Housing and Transportation

Housing advocates, municipal policy experts, real estate developers and property managers, public transit professionals, and pet transport services

Economic and Community Support

Funders, foundations, community health organizations, faith-based and civic groups, employers, and nonprofit leaders

No single sector can solve these challenges alone. The Summit is designed to create the conditions for cross-sector collaboration that lasts.

A man with a dark beard and ear gauges crouches next to a black and white dog with its tongue out, both looking at the camera. The dog has a bandage on its front leg.

Intended Outcomes

  • A shared, cross-sector framework for One Health systems alignment
  • Identification of structural barriers in law, policy, funding, and governance that impede coordinated care for pet-inclusive families
  • Actionable policy directions and near-term pathways for continued collaboration
  • Strengthened partnerships among animal welfare, human health, housing, and social service organizations
  • A credible, sustained platform for advancing pet family health equity beyond the Summit itself

For questions about the Summit,
attendance, or partnership inquiries:

A young woman with dark curly hair and a black shirt smiles at the camera against a gray background.

Kayla Anderson, LMSW

Veterinary Social Worker

[email protected]