AUTHOR=Comin Arianna , Jonasson Anita , Rockström Ulrika , Kautto Arja Helena , Keeling Linda , Nyman Ann-Kristin , Lindberg Ann , Frössling Jenny TITLE=Can we use meat inspection data for animal health and welfare surveillance? JOURNAL=Frontiers in Veterinary Science VOLUME=10 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2023.1129891 DOI=10.3389/fvets.2023.1129891 ISSN=2297-1769 ABSTRACT=
Ante- and post-mortem inspections at abattoir were originally introduced to provide assurance that animal carcasses were fit for human consumption. However, findings at meat inspection can also represent a valuable source of information for animal health and welfare surveillance. Yet, before making secondary use of meat inspection data, it is important to assess that the same post-mortem findings get registered in a consistent way among official meat inspectors across abattoirs, so that the results are as much independent as possible from the abattoir where the inspection is performed. The most frequent findings at official meat inspections of pigs and beef cattle in Sweden were evaluated by means of variance partitioning to quantify the amount of variation in the probabilities of these findings due to abattoir and farm levels. Seven years of data (2012–2018) from 19 abattoirs were included in the study. The results showed that there was a very low variation between abattoirs for presence of liver parasites and abscesses, moderately low variation for pneumonia and greatest variation for injuries and nonspecific findings (e.g.,