“…Articles in this special issue include scoping reviews of systematic reviews in animal health (Vriezen et al, 2019a) and of non-antibiotic approaches to reduce the need for antibiotic treatments in beef and veal production (Wisener et al, 2019). The systematic reviews with meta-analyses or network meta-analyses include an assessment of the efficacy of vaccines and injectable antibiotics administered on arrival to control respiratory disease in feedlot cattle (O'Connor et al, 2019a(O'Connor et al, , 2019b; the efficacy of teat sealants, antibiotics at dry off, selective dry cow treatment to reduce the incidence of mastitis and intra-mammary infection in early lactation, and the efficacy of antibiotics to treat clinical mastitis in dairy cattle (Winder et al, 2019a(Winder et al, , 2019b(Winder et al, , 2019c(Winder et al, , 2019d; the comparative efficacy of litter type for preventing illness in broiler chickens (Sargeant et al, 2019a); the efficacy of antibiotics to prevent colibacillosis in broiler chickens (Sargeant et al, 2019b); and the efficacy of bacterial vaccines and of preventive antibiotics to prevent respiratory disease in swine (Sargeant et al, 2019c(Sargeant et al, , 2019d. Finally, an evaluation of the methodological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses evaluating preventive antibiotics or management to reduce disease in livestock species is included (Vriezen et al, 2019b).…”