How can veterinary epidemiology contribute to sustainable animal production?

Summary

Sustainable animal production is characterised by conservation of resources, environmental care, good animal health and welfare, and should agree with consumer demand and be profitable for the producer. The relative importance of most of these characteristics - and how they are realised in practise - depends strongly on the situation at hand, due for instance to social and political conditions. However, irrespective of differences in local conditions with respect to available resources - waste management etc - good animal health should always be an integrated part of a sustainable animal production, both from the animal perspective and from the human health perspective. Epidemiology is the study of the distribution of diseases in populations and of risk factors for diseases, and is well suited to address the oftentimes multifactorial nature of diseases in production animals. Epidemiological information can therefore be used to plan and evaluate strategies to prevent diseases, but also to monitor trends in order to identify emerging threats to animal health. As such, epidemiology as a discipline provides fundamental concepts and tools useful for basic research (from generating hypotheses to establishing causal relationships) as well as practical applications such as herd health services. This presentation outlines the value of epidemiology in promoting animal health, and highlights some applications of epidemiological methods with special reference to sustainable animal production.