Outline for an integrated modelling approach concerning risks and economic consequences of contagious animal diseases

Abstract

Outbreaks of contagious animal diseases pose a major threat to livestock production. Especially outbreaks of diseases that are on list A of the OIE are feared because these outbreaks will often result in serious economic losses, especially for major exporting countries such as The Netherlands. Management decisions in this area may have a large impact, but are usually based on scarce and unreliable information. Extensive research has been done on contagious animal diseases but an integrated model which combines the various aspects of outbreaks and risks with economic consequences is still missing. A flexible model with the possibility of evaluating the consequences of various strategies can be an important tool to aid in policy and decision making. In this paper a modelling approach is proposed which should lead to such an integrated model. In the paper the approach (a general framework) is outlined and several techniques to be applied are discussed. Subjective mathematical probability seems to be an appropriate technique as a basis for the model. In developing the model, special emphasis should be given to gathering the input data, which could include the use of expert panels. Promising techniques to deal with expert panels mainly originate from the area of marketing and consumer science and include conjoint analysis and the elicitation of subjective probability distributions.