This project is examining reform of the veterinary profession by comparing the experiences in the UK with those in New Zealand.
Key Aims are to:
- understand how a shift to a neoliberal form of governance can affect rural veterinary practices; and
- identify performance measures that can be used to assess performance of vets in relation to TB testing.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Living with Disease: understanding the social and economic impacts of TB
This is an ESRC funded CASE award part funded by the Welsh Assembly Government. The aim of the project is to look more closely at the social and economic impacts of TB. One of the reasons for this is that these impacts have some sort of cost, yet to date these costs have not been factored into any cost benefit analysis. Moreover, TB policy has come to revolve as much around a discourse of human suffering as it has a discourse of animal health and disease.
Normally these costs are said to be intangible and immeasurable. There are some methodologies, however, used in studies of occupational health that have tried to measure the impacts of stress, or what they call presenteeism - that is the cost of turning up to work when ill and not performing to one's full potential.
There has been some systematic work done on farmer stress (by Defra) but none in Wales. Much of this work has simply involved snapshot surveys rather than longitudinal analysis. Maggie Mort's work on FMD shows that the stress of animal disease can last along time. In my work, farmers often compared TB to cancer and FMD a heart attack. Understanding these long term effects, how they are distributed throughout farming families is a key aim of this study. It may also help to understand how advice to farmers can be better targetted.
The project will be using a survey of farmers in Wales to measure levels of stress and presenteeism in different TB context, along with some in-depth study of selected farmers.
Normally these costs are said to be intangible and immeasurable. There are some methodologies, however, used in studies of occupational health that have tried to measure the impacts of stress, or what they call presenteeism - that is the cost of turning up to work when ill and not performing to one's full potential.
There has been some systematic work done on farmer stress (by Defra) but none in Wales. Much of this work has simply involved snapshot surveys rather than longitudinal analysis. Maggie Mort's work on FMD shows that the stress of animal disease can last along time. In my work, farmers often compared TB to cancer and FMD a heart attack. Understanding these long term effects, how they are distributed throughout farming families is a key aim of this study. It may also help to understand how advice to farmers can be better targetted.
The project will be using a survey of farmers in Wales to measure levels of stress and presenteeism in different TB context, along with some in-depth study of selected farmers.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Badger Vaccination
This project is funded by Defra and is in conjunction with colleagues at the Countryside and Community Research Institute (University of Gloucestershire/UWE) as well as people from FERA, VLA and RAC.
The aim of the project is to evaluate and assess farmers' confidence in badger vaccination. Vaccination may prove to be one of the "tools in the box" but there are a number of reasons why farmers may not have confidence in using a vaccine for bovine Tuberculosis.
The project was to have originally followed the experiences of the Badger Vaccine Deployment Project in the 6 areas around the country where badger vaccination was to have been rolled out. As a result of the 2010 election however, the BVDP was cut down to just one area (near Stroud) with another area (near Cheltenham) acting as a reserve area and a training site.
Our accompanying social science project has also changed. The methodology is broadly as follows:
1- A survey of farmers in 5 areas. This has been completed and the results should be out shortly. A baseline and follow-up survey will help assess levels of confidence and trust in vaccination and show how they have changed.
2 - in-depth longitudinal interviews with farmers in 3 areas. These will address issues of vaccine confidence but also the wider contextual environment to show how that informs decisions about vaccination and other policy responses to bovine TB. This will be especially interesting given that the current policy direction is to give farmers' responsibility over dealing with TB themselves.
You can find more information about the BVDP here on FERA's website
The aim of the project is to evaluate and assess farmers' confidence in badger vaccination. Vaccination may prove to be one of the "tools in the box" but there are a number of reasons why farmers may not have confidence in using a vaccine for bovine Tuberculosis.
The project was to have originally followed the experiences of the Badger Vaccine Deployment Project in the 6 areas around the country where badger vaccination was to have been rolled out. As a result of the 2010 election however, the BVDP was cut down to just one area (near Stroud) with another area (near Cheltenham) acting as a reserve area and a training site.
Our accompanying social science project has also changed. The methodology is broadly as follows:
1- A survey of farmers in 5 areas. This has been completed and the results should be out shortly. A baseline and follow-up survey will help assess levels of confidence and trust in vaccination and show how they have changed.
2 - in-depth longitudinal interviews with farmers in 3 areas. These will address issues of vaccine confidence but also the wider contextual environment to show how that informs decisions about vaccination and other policy responses to bovine TB. This will be especially interesting given that the current policy direction is to give farmers' responsibility over dealing with TB themselves.
You can find more information about the BVDP here on FERA's website
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