An overview of PhD research in the area of risk communications for animal disease management and incorporating approaches to fieldwork for second year stage of research.

1. PhD Title
Examining disease risk communications for disease control management: implementing
biosecurity measures on English cattle farms in the context of the disease bovine tuberculosis
Sally Curzon

2. Purpose of talk
Items to cover:
Explain PhD background and content
Summary focus of PhD
Why the context of bovine TB (bTB) ?
Why look at biosecurity measures as a disease management technique ?
Why examine disease risk communications ?
Fieldwork questions / methodology
Conclusion and contribution to knowledge
Title
Examining disease risk communications for
disease control management: implementing
biosecurity measures on English cattle farms in
the context of the disease bovine tuberculosis

3. Core PhD focus
Disease Risk Communications
… the communication of information for
disease risk management (in particular
biosecurity information)
Key Question
How can disease risk management information, such as
biosecurity information, which may have a positive impact on
managing bovine tuberculosis, be best created, effectively
shared and utilised by farmers, scientists, policy makers and
industry specialists?

4. Academic literature suggests the following points with regard
to disease risk communications utilising biosecurity:
1. Disease risk communications in the form of biosecurity
information can be created differently by social groups,
can be given varying meanings and understandings by
them, and biosecurity practice, can be hard to ‘sell’ as
an idea and approach to disease management (Bennett
and Cooke 2005; Hinchliffe and Ward et.al. 2014;
Waage and Mumford 2008).
2. Communication styles of different stakeholders can be
hierarchical, complex and challenging (Enticott 2008).
3. Social science, with its emphasis on social context, has
been under-utilised in the exploration of what
constitutes and creates useful and valued disease risk
communications (Fischhoff 2013; Gilmour et al. 2011).

5. Mycobacterium bovis
Definition
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic, infectious
disease of animals caused by the bacteria
Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) with the potential to
affect most mammals and causing a general state of
illness, wasting, coughing and eventual death
(World Organisation for Animal Health OIE 2015)
• Complex epidemiology
• Reservoirs of infection in cattle and wildlife
• Impacted historically over centuries
• International problem

6. Mycobacterium bovis
UK
‘Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is the most pressing animal health problem in the
UK. The crisis facing our cattle farmers, their families and their communities
cannot be overstated. It is a devastating zoonosis that threatens our cattle
industry and presents risks to other livestock, wildlife species such as badgers,
domestic pets and humans’ (Department for Environment Food and Rural
Affairs 2014).
• £100 million cost to UK taxpayer in 2014 and tens of millions to farmers
• 2013 = 6.2 million bTB tests conducted, 26 000 cattle slaughtered
• Cattle slaughtered 314 000 last decade
• The situation for England is probably the worst in the EU and amongst
countries farming in the western world
(Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs 2014)

7. bTB reactor density per km2 in cases of ‘officially bTB
free status withdrawn’ (OTF-W) for a) 1992, b) 1996,
c)2000, d)2004, e) 2008, f)2012, g)2013
Source: (Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency 2013:25-26).

8. Proportion of herds under
operational restriction due to
bTB breakdown where OTF-W
(officially TB-free status is
withdrawn) by County, for
England 2014
Source: (Animal and Plant Health Agency 2014)

9. Source: (Department for Environment Food and
Rural Affairs 2014:14)
Map of England and Wales
showing High and Low risk county
areas for bTB prevalence buffered
by Edge Area counties

10. New herd incidents where OTF-W (officially TB-free status is withdrawn) per 100
herd years at risk of infection annually for Great Britain
Source: (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs 2015)

11. New herd incidents where OTF-W (officially TB-free status is withdrawn) per 100
herd years at risk of infection annually for England for High, Low Risk and Edge areas
Source: (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs 2015)

12. Biosecurity definition
General
Biosecurity can be understood as a series of disease mitigating
strategies, processes and knowledge to prevent disease
incursion and the spread of infectious pathogens in a range of
domains where disease occurs amongst humans, animals and
plants or more broadly within an environment (Koblentz 2010).
Livestock Farming
Biosecurity refers to those measures taken to keep diseases out
of populations, herds, or groups of animals where it does not
currently exist or to limit the spread of disease within the herd…
(European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General 2007).

13. Examples of livestock disease management strategies
(biosecurity knowledge and practice)
• Veterinary healthcare
• Livestock health management planning
• Routine animal husbandry
• Hygiene management, cleansing and disinfecting
• Inspection and reporting of animal health matters
• Farm input and output monitoring
• Animal movement controls

14. Statutory / required biosecurity
• Routine cattle bTB testing
• Pre / post movement testing
• Cattle isolation / slaughter
• Animal movement data provision
• Herd TB status data provision
Non statutory / optional biosecurity
• Exclusion of wildlife from farm environs
• Containment of feeding locations and food stores
• Control of grazing location, proximity, intensity
• Closed herd breeding systems
• Risk-based trading
• Slurry spreading management
Examples of livestock disease management
(biosecurity knowledge and practice) for bTB

15. What are biosecurity risk communications?
• Modern ‘risk society’ takes a rationalistic framing of the
world whereby risks can be identified, assessed, quantified
and affected to some degree by human intervention. Risks
are selected as suitable candidates for structured response
(Beck 1992; Mythen 2004).
• Risk communication models have evolved:
one-way dissemination of knowledge citizen engagement public deliberation
dialogue consensusing … and put another way ….
one-way, top-down, asymmetrical communication two-way, democratic,
symmetrical communication
• Risk communications come from many sources, with
different power relationships and this ideal model may not
reflect the reality of how risk communications are
constructed, taken on board, shared or acted upon in
reality. The democratic ideal is potentially problematic
(Law and Moser 2012; Merkelsen 2011).

16. Biosecurity Risk Communications

17. So, how to approach understanding
‘good’ risk communications?
1. Where value lies for stakeholders in terms of the types of
biosecurity knowledge appreciated by them and why it is valued;
2. How local, tacit knowledge and experience adds value together
with abstracted non-situational knowledge;
3. How ideas about disease management are best tested, evaluated,
adapted, absorbed, rejected – how they evolve within a context;
4. The ways in which communications are valued or not: locally,
between close cultural groups and between groups that are less
culturally integrated and the impact of these communications;
5. The ideal scale and context for discussion and debate around
biosecurity information and communication;
6. How the localised and specific and the general and abstracted can
relate in terms of biosecurity knowledge creation, information
exchange and communication.

18. Research questions to be examined
1. How is biosecurity knowledge and information formulated and created
by farmers, vets, scientists, policy makers and industry specialists?
2. What are the values, social contexts and meanings which give rise to
their particular formulations of this information? What is the impact of
social factors on the types of information created?
3. What value is given by stakeholders to different biosecurity knowledges
and why?
4. In what ways can these biosecurity knowledges sit alongside each other?
5. How is biosecurity disease risk information communicated between
different stakeholders at different social structural levels? How do
people perceive this to be working or not? What is the best scale,
method and level perceived to be for different types of communication?
6. What is the impact of biosecurity knowledge content and style and risk
communication content and style on how people respond to
information? How does it shape biosecurity behaviour and approaches?

19. Fieldwork approach
• Construct two regional, detailed local biographies of disease risk communications
through the examination of case studies using mixed methods approach
• Compare an endemic, high risk region and an Edge Area medium risk region to
contrast the potential impact of externally generated, geographical categorisations
of risk, on the nature and perception of risk communications
• Determine the nature of localised biosecurity risk knowledge and risk
communication styles and the relationship and differences between local, specific,
optional communications and generic, abstract, required communications
• Explore factors driving valued biosecurity disease risk communications and explore
potential models and methods to leverage and facilitate ‘more effective’,
‘appropriately’ scaled approaches to trading and sharing valued information for
managing bTB and connecting the benefits of local, tacit, experiential knowledge
and relations with general, abstracted, formalised knowledge and relations.

20. Mixed methods approach: case studies, ethnographic
observations, structured interviewing, grounded theory
• Scoping meetings identify 5 contact veterinary practices in each
research region (10 in total) to provide 30 farm case study contacts
for research. (Identify vets, write letters and follow up phone calls,
with vet help identify farmers to send 100 introductory letters).
• (Purposive sampling: Farmer sample to include those heavily involved with local communications around bTB and those less
so; farmers affected by bTB and those less so; farmers representing different age categories and gender; farmers keen on
biosecurity and not so keen; medium and high risk areas; different farm models, scales, enterprises to be represented.)
• 30 farm case studies equal split High Risk and Edge Area:
• 30 structured in-depth interviews (+3 to act as initial pilots)
• Risk knowledge and communications mapping for each farm
• 10 farms – 1-2 days ethnographic participant observation focussed on
general farm or biosecurity activities or communication events
• 10 ‘other specialist’ case studies: with vets, scientists, policy
makers, industry experts – structured interviews and ethnographic
participant observation days at communication events
• 2 focus group / forum sessions to feed back and build on findings
with participants or workshops with regional NFU bTB groups

21. Conclusion and contribution to knowledge
• To use methods from social science, influenced by ethnographic
approaches, to understand more about disease risk knowledge
creation and communication for the management of bovine
tuberculosis.
• To create localised, specific, biosecurity risk communication
biographies which reveal the detailed workings of local disease risk
communication strategies in two disease risk locations and how
they intersect with national policy and strategies.
• To produce a critical analysis of current disease risk communication
methods and models through the perspective of stakeholders.
• To consider the potential for localised approaches towards
constructing scaled, regional disease risk communications, through
collaborative methods.
• Explore the potential of using local, detailed case study material to
create general extrapolations concerning disease risk
communications with applicability in a broader policy context

22. . Animal and Plant Health Agency (2014). Bovine tuberculosis: Infection status in cattle in GB - Annual surveillance report 2014.
. Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (2013). Bovine tuberculosis: Infection status in cattle in GB. Department for
the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
. Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity.
. Bennett, R. and Cooke, R. (2005) Control of bovine TB: preferences of farmers who have suffered a TB breakdown. Veterinary
Record. 156(5): 143-145
. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (2014). Strategy for Achieving "Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free" Status for
England: an 'edge area' strategy.
. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (2015). Monthly publication of National Statistics on the Incidence of
Tuberculosis (TB) in Cattle to end January 2015 for Great Britain.
. Enticott, G. (2008) The spaces of biosecurity: prescribing and negotiating solutions to bovine tuberculosis. Environment and
Planning A. 40(7): 1568-1582
. European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General (2007). A new animal health strategy for the
European Union 2007 - 2013 where "Prevention is better than cure".
. Fischhoff, B. (2013) The sciences of science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110(Supplement
3): 14033-14039
. Gilmour, J., Beilin, R. and Sysak, T. (2011) Biosecurity risk and peri-urban landholders - using a stakeholder consultative approach
to build a risk communication strategy. J Risk Res. 14(3): 281 - 295
. Hinchliffe, S. and Ward, K. J. (2014) Geographies of folded life: How immunity reframes biosecurity. Geoforum. 53(0): 136-144
. Koblentz, G. D. (2010) Biosecurity Reconsidered: Calibrating Biological Threats and Responses. International Security. 34(4): 96-
132
. Law, J. and Moser, I. (2012) Contexts and Culling. Science, Technology & Human Values. 37(4): 332-354
. Merkelsen, H. (2011) Risk communication and citizen engagement: what to expect from dialogue. Journal of Risk Research.
14(5): 631-645
. Mythen, G. (2004) Ulrich Beck a Critical Introduction to the Risk Society.
. Waage, J. K. and Mumford, J. D. (2008) Agricultural biosecurity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences. 363(1492): 863-876
. World Organisation for Animal Health OIE. (2015) Bovine Tuberculosis.
References

23. Thank you for your attention!