Decision-making frameworks in management of livestock disease: epidemiology, economics, politics & law Professor Graham Medley Biological Sciences University of Warwick

Background Start in 2007 Infectious diseases are an ecological problem: interaction of host and pathogen –Diagnostics (are there good data?) –Transmission patterns (risk factors for infection and disease) –Impact (productivity losses, welfare) –Interventions (vaccines, movement restrictions etc.) –Combine into frameworks that inform policy makers & producers of the cost-effectiveness of different interventions But it doesn’t work like that… policy is a mystery to me –Foot and mouth epidemic (FMD); bovine tuberculosis (bTB); bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) DEFRA funded a bTB project from which we bled 10,000 animals on 114 farms three times in three years BBSRC funded a seroepidemiology project to test for five infections (+bTB = six )

Objectives Who does and should decide whether a disease should be controlled by elimination and how should they make that decision? –Endemic disease (vs. exotic) – epidemiology is only part of the issue; the economic, regulatory and political systems combine to “live with” the disease For a given level of regulation, to what extent is disease controlled? –Who wants it controlled and why? –Who should decide the target level to which any disease should be controlled? Consumer demand can be changed by public perceptions, and international trade is greatly influenced by disease. –2001 FMD epidemic and the on-going bTB epidemic The project will concentrate on six diseases of cattle found in the UK. –We already have considerable information –We will collect more data on how farmers make decisions that influence these diseases. –We will interview individuals to understand the interactions. –We will construct computer models that include the important processes to seek better ways of controlling them.

Interdisciplinarity Epidemiological and biological –Do we know what causes the disease? Can it be diagnosed accurately? How is it transmitted? How can it be controlled most effectively? Economic –Is the saving of productivity worth the intervention? Will the increased productivity result in more profit for farmers or more profit for retailers? Are there areas in which the disease is more likely to occur or be more profitable to control? What are the competing forces operating on farmers for their land (especially the environment)? What are the drivers for farmer behaviour? Political –Is there an international trade barrier? Is the disease of high public profile? How is decision making within Government influenced by groups such as vets and animal protection lobby? Legal –What laws are available for Government to control the disease? How should the policy and legal framework be crafted so that farmers and the public perceive it as effective and necessary? How is liability for the costs of the disease and risks associated with disease control allocated? How does the risk of transmissible disease affect land ownership and land use?

An example - bTB Why is it perceived as a disease problem? –c.f. FMD and BVDV Why is it controlled as it is? –Compensation What are the politics of bTB control? –Badgers What is the aim of current policy? –Trade barriers

Stakeholders Farmers, public (consumers), retailers (supermarkets), elected representatives (MPs and National Farmers’ Union), veterinarians, EU and Government officials (DEFRA and SVS) How do these groups interact, decisions get made and policy enacted? To get a holistic understanding and put processes in their proper context, we need to include the different disciplines simultaneously We are seeking to establish the parameters of the policy network, who the key actors are, whether they are clustered in any way and whether there are actors who do not directly interact with each other. –Think of a Shakespeare play in which not all the characters may meet each other, at least not until the finale.

Originality We consider different infections at the same time –Virtually all research and current policy only considers one disease at a time; despite it being known that imposing regulations aimed at one disease has knock-on effects on other diseases –It has been considered just too difficult to think of diseases simultaneously, and the necessary data and knowledge have not existed previously We will consider all the different organisational levels at the same time –Previous research has largely concentrated on different aspects - individual animals or groupings of animals (epidemiology), farms (economics), international trade (politics) –but each level influences and is influenced by all the others

Who We Are Jonathan Cave (Economics) –Economist & game theorist Wyn Grant & Justin Greaves (Politics) –Political scientists Laura Green (Biological Sciences) –Veterinary epidemiologist Matt Keeling (Mathematics / Biological Sciences) –Mathematical epidemiologist John McEldowney (Law) –Environmental law Graham Medley (Biological Sciences) –Infectious disease epidemiologist Experts in our fields, with the aim of developing an interdisciplinary group targeting livestock infections in the UK