A Summer in Prague

Through the One Health Scholars program, I had the opportunity to take Global One Health Applications (GOH 302) in Prague this summer. This intensive three week course seeks to expose students to One Health in an international context. This was the final course in my B.S. in statistics with a minor in Global One Health, and I am now pursuing a masters of Climate Change and Society and certificate of Disaster Resilient Policy, Engineering, and Design. Ultimately, I hope to attend medical school and explore the interactions of climate change, medicine, and humanitarian aid. This course deepened my understanding of the interactions between human, animal, and environmental health and encouraged me to approach challenges through interdisciplinarity in my future career.

When we first arrived, we took a walking tour of Prague and learned about Czech history. Our tour guide talked about the differences in her life under the communist regime compared to today’s government. We then took a Czech language, culture, and cooking course, where we learned to make bread and soup. Our teacher told us that Czechs are like coconuts, with a hard exterior and a soft inside once you crack their shell (break the ice). Working on One Health challenges in a global environment requires cultural humility, so I thought it was perfect that we started off with a cultural introduction to Prague.

We learned that greenspaces are really important to Prague. Greenspaces provide a way to mitigate urban heat islands, improve mental health, and support local ecosystems. We visited a city park and learned how to assess the health of trees, using instruments to record their height and examining their canopies for symmetry and signs of disease. We took questionnaires to assess our level of happiness before and after spending time in the park. Seeing our group’s happiness and sense of well-being increase gave me a tangible metric to support what I had learned back in Raleigh in my coursework about the connection between greenspaces and mental health.

During one of our lectures, we also learned about a tornado that swept through the Czech Republic in 2021. This tornado was unusual for the region, and it claimed multiple lives. In one of my master’s classes this semester for my certificate of Disaster Resilient Policy, Engineering, and Design, I met an exchange student from Czechia. My familiarity with the tornado allowed me the opportunity to connect with him and ask him deeper questions about the disaster.

We visited the Czech Veterinary Institute as well, giving us the opportunity to see how Czechia tests for zoonotic disease. While we were there, one of the scientists showed us his lab and how they utilize data to identify avian influenza in a sample. As a statistics student with an interest in medicine, it meant a lot to me to be able to see the application of data analysis to pathogens. I saw how important data analysis could be in my future medical research, and it inspired me to continue developing my quantitative skills.

During the plague tour, we learned about the history of the plague in the Czech Republic and the strategies that Prague plague doctors used to treat and prevent the spread of the plague. Our tour guide told us that doctors believed that the plague spread through foul smells and that by smelling fragrances, you could keep yourself from contracting the plague. It’s amazing how far modern medicine has come!

We also took a tour of Prague’s Jewish quarter. The drawings on display from children at the Terezin concentration camp were heartbreaking, and I chose to tour the camp after the course was over to learn more about the tragic history. I am grateful that the course was located in Prague, as its proximity to historical sites allowed for travel on the weekends to continue our learning outside of the classroom. I visited Germany, Poland, and Austria, gaining comfort with solo travel.

Towards the end of the course, we went on a fun rafting trip in Czesky Krumlov. Shoutout to my awesome rafting team and Rida Tariq, a Global One Health Scholar who went rafting for the first time!

The course also featured a speaker from the Czech Ministry of Health. She spoke to us about the Russia-Ukraine war and the interaction between Ukrainian refugees and One Health issues in the region. I was surprised to learn that although most citizens of Czechia sympathized with Ukraine’s position in the war, some still resented Ukrainian refugees due to the perception that they burdened the healthcare system and brought in human and animal diseases. For example, Ukraine has seen a surge in rabies due to the abandoned animals from the war, so other Europeans are concerned about the spread of rabies from Ukrainian pets. The speaker made the important point though that some fear of disease is unfounded and rooted in xenophobia.

As I hope to work with refugee populations in the future, it was an important learning experience to understand that there is a discrepancy between how communities feel about a humanitarian crisis and how they feel about accepting refugees. Just because a community sympathizes with refugees’ circumstances does not mean that they will welcome them with open arms. Overall, my time in Europe really taught me to look underneath the surface to investigate the history of a region in order to understand their current beliefs and receptiveness to policy and One Health measures.

During one of our last days in Prague, we toured Prague’s historic wastewater treatment plant. This plant is no longer in use, but the glittering water and red brick told a story of Prague’s efforts to improve public health. We took a boat ride through one of the canals, which was thrilling (and chilly).

Our final class project was to identify a One Health issue in Prague and produce a presentation/activity to teach the class about this issue. My group chose to present on nutria, an invasive rodent species that can be found in Prague and is responsible for spreading disease and destroying vegetation. We went to the banks of the Vltava River to see if we could locate any nutria. We found some, and we even saw people feeding them, which highlights the need for improved messaging about the diseases that nutria can carry.

Through the exploration of interconnected disciplines, this program reinforced to me that it is possible to pursue my desire to make the world a better place for humans, animals, and our natural environment — all at the same time. It was the perfect way to end my undergraduate degree, and I’m extremely grateful to the NC State Global One Health Academy and the Global One Health Scholars program for making this experience possible!