Lee, H, Perkins, C, Gray, H et al. (6 more authors) (2020) Influence of temperature on prevalence of health and welfare conditions in pigs: time-series analysis of pig abattoir inspection data in England and Wales. Epidemiology and Infection, 148. e30. pp. 1-8. ISSN 0950-2688
Abstract
The prevalence of many diseases in pigs displays seasonal distributions. Despite growing concerns about the impacts of climate change, we do not yet have a good understanding of the role that weather factors play in explaining such seasonal patterns. In this study, national and county-level aggregated abattoir inspection data were assessed for England and Wales during 2010–2015. Seasonally-adjusted relationships were characterised between weekly ambient maximum temperature and the prevalence of both respiratory conditions and tail biting detected at slaughter. The prevalence of respiratory conditions showed cyclical annual patterns with peaks in the summer months and troughs in the winter months each year. However, there were no obvious associations with either high or low temperatures. The prevalence of tail biting generally increased as temperatures decreased, but associations were not supported by statistical evidence: across all counties there was a relative risk of 1.028 (95% CI 0.776–1.363) for every 1 °C fall in temperature. Whilst the seasonal patterns observed in this study are similar to those reported in previous studies, the lack of statistical evidence for an explicit association with ambient temperature may possibly be explained by the lack of information on date of disease onset. There is also the possibility that other time-varying factors not investigated here may be driving some of the seasonal patterns.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Crown Copyright. Published by Cambridge University Press 2020. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Climate; epidemiology; estimating; impact of; prevalence of disease; respiratory infections; veterinary epidemiology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number BBSRC (Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council) BB/N020790/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Mar 2020 12:43 |
Last Modified: | 03 Mar 2020 12:43 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/s0950268819002085 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:157903 |