Researchers examined everyday practices and conditions that could enable cross-species transmission in four rural villages in Nan Province, organising findings into five interfaces: human–animal, human–environment, human-human, animal–animal, and animal–environment. The picture is not simply one of deficient knowledge. Animal contact, butchering and food preparation, water scarcity and contamination, waste, forest change, intensified agriculture, mixed-species proximity, and multilingual communication operate as a system. Community leaders and village health volunteers were viewed as trusted messengers. The study therefore recommends education that combines knowledge, skills, practical tools, and recognition of structural limits, but it neither completed nor evaluated the final intervention.
Key findings
- The human–animal interface was embedded in routine husbandry, small-wildlife hunting, butchering, and food preparation. Participants generally avoided sick animals and usually cooked wild meat, yet shared chopping boards, absent gloves, limited handwashing water, and market displays without cold storage created possible exposure points.
- The human–environment interface was shaped by water scarcity, drainage, waste, agricultural residues, deforestation, and landslides. Some households relied on rainwater, stored water, and greywater, while waterways received runoff from dumps, wastewater, dog faeces, and farming. Water-intensive hygiene advice may therefore be infeasible.
- The human-human interface centred on trust and communication fit. Community leaders and village health volunteers used loudspeakers, LINE, and household visits, but linguistic diversity, age, smartphone comfort, and unreliable internet require multimodal, multilingual, locally grounded communication.
- Animal–animal and animal–environment interfaces connected mixed-species pens, free-roaming domestic animals, small wildlife, orchards, secondary-forest edges, shared water, and waste sites. The authors recommend low-cost practical skills, such as separating raw and cooked food tools and appropriate wound care, alongside upstream-risk literacy, while stressing that education cannot fix water, forest, waste, or infrastructure deficits by itself.
Why this matters globally
The study shows how everyday-life evidence can inform One Health design without assigning households sole responsibility for structural problems. Its five-interface framework and content–method–messenger questions could guide formative research in rural Southeast Asia and other settings where people, animals, and ecosystems overlap. However, no pathogen testing, biological sampling, contact-rate measurement, or linkage to human cases was performed. The study cannot rank risks or prove that any interface caused spillover. Transfer requires new evidence on local seasons, food systems, animal species, languages, and infrastructure.
Thai researcher contribution
Nine authors have Khon Kaen University affiliations: Monchai Phongsiri, Simaphon Tomklang, Theerayuth Labooth, Thanapat Chaibut, Pongsakon Jaruton, Kotthamon Chanprathad, Sarutaya Suphawatthanaphan, and Patcharin Lapanun at the Center for Research on Plurality in the Mekong Region, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, plus Hans Overgaard at the Faculty of Medicine. The contributions statement says Monchai, Simaphon, Theerayuth, Thanapat, Pongsakon, Kotthamon, Sarutaya, and Patcharin collected and analysed data and contributed to writing; Hans Overgaard contributed to project coordination and final manuscript preparation. The methods also state that six Thai postgraduate research assistants helped design, translate, pilot, and administer tools, while a bilingual Khon Kaen University team checked translations against original recordings. Thai institutional roles therefore span fieldwork, analysis, writing, and cultural-linguistic adaptation.
Limitations to consider
Fieldwork was a one-off visit from 11 to 24 January 2025, producing a cross-section that cannot capture wet seasons, cropping cycles, animal movement, or market change across the year. Purposive selection in four villages focused on relevant roles and is not representative of Nan Province. Participants overlapped across methods, so 36 interviews, 26 walks, and 16 mapping participants must not be summed as a unique-person total. Interfaces were described qualitatively and deliberately not converted into risk scores. No pathogen samples, epidemiological outcomes, or longitudinal observation verified transmission. AI-assisted transcription and Thai–English translation may lose nuance despite bilingual checking. Data are available only by request. Proposed communication, artefact, and village-health-volunteer strategies have not yet been tested for feasibility, acceptability, burden, cost, behaviour change, or infection outcomes.