Using a cooperative board game to examine One Health teamwork functions under pressure

Abstract Health threats at the human–animal–environment interface demand joint decisions across public health, veterinary, and environmental agencies, yet institutional mandates and siloed data systems frequently hinder effective coordination. While One Health frameworks identify enabling functions such as communication, collaboration, coordination, and capacity building, these routines are often managed implicitly during stable periods but become fragile during crisis. Educational curricula often rely on broad competency domains that provide limited guidance on the observable behaviors required to maintain these functions as conditions shift from routine to emergency response. To address this gap, this study uses a cooperative board game as a time‑limited activity that creates interdependence and moments of escalating pressure to expose how stable teamwork functions, degrades, or adapts under threat. The seminar was refined across four annual cohorts of the programme between 2020 and 2023. The analyzed dataset comes from the 2023 cohort of 13 multidisciplinary practitioners, studied across three consecutive play sessions. A hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis of gameplay and structured debrief discussions describes how learners enact and articulate specific routines. These descriptions include how they resequenced steps, checked rule requirements, and paused briefly to regain a shared understanding of the evolving situation. The findings show how time‑limited tasks draw attention to tensions between immediate containment actions and longer‑term progress toward shared objectives. The study proposes that structured game activities offer a reproducible environment for learners to notice and describe teamwork behaviors relevant to One Health training and assessment.