Assessing stakeholder inclusion within high pathogenicity avian influenza risk governance strategies in the UK and USA

Kimberly Lyons ^1* Darrell R Kapczynski ² Samantha J Lycett ³ Paul Digard ³ Lisa Boden ⁴

• ¹ Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
• ² Exotic & Emerging Avian Viral Diseases Research Unit, U.S. National Poultry Research Center, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Athens, Georgia, United States
• ³ Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
• ⁴ Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Since 2020, outbreaks of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) have led to a global rise in deaths of both wild birds and poultry, as well as an increase in reported cases of HPAI detected in mammals. These outbreaks have had negative impacts on poultry producers, trade, and wild bird populations. Risk governance frameworks for emerging infectious diseases such as HPAI encourage outbreak policies to be grounded in a variety of stakeholder perspectives and effective, transparent communication between all those involved. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exemplified how collaboration is not always easy to implement, leading to potentially sub-optimal outbreak response processes. To our best knowledge, there is limited to no current research assessing the stakeholder landscape and outbreak decision-making and response processes in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA) for the recent HPAI outbreak. In this study, key stakeholders involved in outbreak decision-making and response in the UK and USA were asked to provide their insights into the structure of stakeholder landscape, communication pathways, and challenges in decision-making and response implementation for their respective countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from the UK and USA; participants included policy advisors, veterinarians, researchers, and poultry industry representatives all involved in HPAI outbreak processes in their country. This study concluded that smallholders and backyard poultry owners in policy-industry communication pathways need to be better represented and that improved information sharing at the policy-science and policy-industry interfaces is essential to ensure an efficient outbreak response.