Economic evaluations can be very useful in animal health management, including adopting control and prevention measures based on financial and data analyses. Diseases can impact the production of livestock considerably through, e.g. treatment costs, prevention, technical assistance, lowered performance and/or quality of feedstock. This review focuses on economic analyses on the impacts of parasitic diseases, control costs and strategies to improve economic efficiency in cattle farms, as well as on methodological analyses to measure the impacts of livestock diseases. From an economic point of view, information on the animal health aspects of farm management is wanting. It is necessary to determine what livestock-related variables are considered and how much value is placed on each variable to reach an objective conclusion. In other words, it is important to determine how much resources should be allocated to the detection, control and prevention of infectious and parasitic diseases in livestock systems.

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