About this Research Topic
Infectious animal and zoonotic diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), African Swine Fever (ASF), and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are important and immediate global disease threats limit infrastructure and resources. These diseases can create challenges for industry stakeholders and policy-makers because of their pandemic potential and resultant widespread economic and social disruption due to demand on existing, limited infrastructure and resources. Management of these threats requires holistic interdisciplinary approaches to understand the complex trade-offs and unintended consequences of disease control policies, not only for animal health but also for the health of the public, our societies, economies, environment, and climate.
New technologies and methodologies in medicine, veterinary medicine, disease dynamics, agriculture, and business have the capacity to deliver large volumes of high-quality data and complex analyses to improve animal and zoonotic disease surveillance and inform disease control policies. However, scientific evidence is usually only a small part of the evidence-base for decision-makers. Incorporating these advances into policy-making can be challenging, given the differences between research, policy and industry timescales and the need to consider multiple evidence bases and different stakeholder groups. Without established effective and explicit channels between scientists, policy and industry audiences it is difficult for researchers to respond to policy with relevant research to inform decision-making in a timely and robust manner.
In this Research Topic, we want to explore the development of the interdisciplinary evidence base for animal (and public) health and different mechanisms used to ensure its effective delivery to policy-makers in order to better anticipate and respond appropriately to existing and emerging animal and zoonotic disease risks. The primary focus is on the application of risk-based evidence to improve policy-making for animal health priorities.
In this Research Topic, we encourage authors to submit Original Research, Reviews, and Opinions on issues exploring issues on developing and/or communicating risk-based evidence to improve decision-making in animal health.
Manuscripts that address one or more of the following themes are welcome:
• Assessment of (animal, zoonotic) disease risks with applications to assist risk managers in decision-making;
• Contingency planning for disease outbreaks;
• Approaches to understanding and communicating concepts of risk and uncertainty to different stakeholder audiences;
• Developments in disease monitoring and surveillance;
• Economics and cost-effectiveness of monitoring, surveillance and disease control options;
• Effective inclusion and engagement of stakeholders and communication of evidence; which is fit-for-purpose across different policy, industry or other interfaces;
• Regulatory or policy barriers to the implementation of scientific evidence to improve animal and/or human public health;
• Evaluating the scientific and societal impact of research to improve animal and/or human public health.
New technologies and methodologies in medicine, veterinary medicine, disease dynamics, agriculture, and business have the capacity to deliver large volumes of high-quality data and complex analyses to improve animal and zoonotic disease surveillance and inform disease control policies. However, scientific evidence is usually only a small part of the evidence-base for decision-makers. Incorporating these advances into policy-making can be challenging, given the differences between research, policy and industry timescales and the need to consider multiple evidence bases and different stakeholder groups. Without established effective and explicit channels between scientists, policy and industry audiences it is difficult for researchers to respond to policy with relevant research to inform decision-making in a timely and robust manner.
In this Research Topic, we want to explore the development of the interdisciplinary evidence base for animal (and public) health and different mechanisms used to ensure its effective delivery to policy-makers in order to better anticipate and respond appropriately to existing and emerging animal and zoonotic disease risks. The primary focus is on the application of risk-based evidence to improve policy-making for animal health priorities.
In this Research Topic, we encourage authors to submit Original Research, Reviews, and Opinions on issues exploring issues on developing and/or communicating risk-based evidence to improve decision-making in animal health.
Manuscripts that address one or more of the following themes are welcome:
• Assessment of (animal, zoonotic) disease risks with applications to assist risk managers in decision-making;
• Contingency planning for disease outbreaks;
• Approaches to understanding and communicating concepts of risk and uncertainty to different stakeholder audiences;
• Developments in disease monitoring and surveillance;
• Economics and cost-effectiveness of monitoring, surveillance and disease control options;
• Effective inclusion and engagement of stakeholders and communication of evidence; which is fit-for-purpose across different policy, industry or other interfaces;
• Regulatory or policy barriers to the implementation of scientific evidence to improve animal and/or human public health;
• Evaluating the scientific and societal impact of research to improve animal and/or human public health.
Keywords: disease outbreaks, risk assessment and mitigation, surveillance, horizon scanning, policy-making
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
