Building the foundation for veterinary register‐based epidemiology: A systematic approach to data quality assessment and validation

Birkegård, Anna Camilla; Fertner, Mette Ely; Jensen, Vibeke Frøkjær; Boklund, Anette; Toft, Nils; Halasa, Tariq Hisham Beshara; Antunes, Ana Carolina Lopes

doi:10.1111/zph.12513

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Herds meeting the following inclusion criteria were identified using the Danish Central Husbandry Register (CHR) [ 34 ], data on medicinal zinc purchases from the VetStat database [ 35 ], and telephone interviews: Accommodated batches of at least 100 newly weaned pigs. Did not use in-feed medical zinc.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An observational field study of porcine post-weaning diarrhea: clinical and microbiological findings, and fecal pH-measurements as a potential diagnostic tool

et al. 2023

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Background Recently, in-feed medicinal zinc has been phased out in pig production in the European Union. This makes updated knowledge about porcine post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) crucial. The objectives of the present study were to investigate (i) the clinical presentation of PWD in pigs housed in Danish herds that did not use medicinal zinc, specifically the prevalence of diarrhea and whether PWD was associated to clinical signs of dehydration or altered body temperature; (ii) which microorganism are associated to PWD; and iii) whether measurements of the fecal pH have a potential to be used diagnostically to differentiate between infectious etiologies in cases of PWD. Results The prevalence of diarrhea varied considerably between the outbreaks in the nine studied herds (median = 0.58, range = 0.10; 0.94). In a cross-sectional design (n = 923), diarrhea was associated with reduced rectal temperature and alkaline feces. Diarrhea was also associated with observably reduced skin elasticity, possibly indicating dehydration. In both diarrheic case pigs (n = 87) and control pigs (n = 86), the presence of Brachyspira pilosicoli, Clostridium perfringens, Cryptosporidium spp., Cystoisopora suis, enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, Lawsonia intracellularis, porcine circovirus types 2 and 3, rotavirus A, B, C, and H, Samonella enterica spp. enterica, and Trichuris suis was described. PWD was associated with high levels of enterotoxigenic E. coli shedding (odds ratio versus no E. coli detection = 4.79 [CI 1.14; 12.62]). Diarrhea was associated with high levels of rotavirus A shedding (odds ratio versus no/low rotavirus A = 3.80 [CI 1.33; 7.97]). The association between microbiological findings in diarrheic pigs and fecal pH was negligible. Conclusions Enterotoxigenic E. coli was confirmed to be a cause of PWD; however, cases of PWD where enterotoxigenic E. coli was not detected in high levels occurred commonly, and this adds to the increasing evidence suggesting that PWD is not necessarily a result of enteric colibacillosis. Rotaviral enteritis might be a differential diagnosis of PWD. pH-measurements cannot be used to differentiate between differential diagnoses for PWD.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An observational field study of porcine post-weaning diarrhea: clinical and microbiological findings, and fecal pH-measurements as a potential diagnostic tool

et al. 2023

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“…In the context of data quality assessment, validity refers to "whether or not the register includes the true value" (15). For VetReg, we evaluated the internal and external validity as appropriate for different variables in the dataset.…”

Section: Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there are no previous studies performing quality assessment or validation of sh vaccination data in VetReg. Birkegård et al (2018) proposed a framework for assessing the data quality of nationwide animal health registers, including a description of the register, use of relevant quality attributes, and identi cation and communication of quality issues (15). Here we use this framework to evaluate VetReg for sh vaccination data in Norway from 2016-2022.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality assessment of fish vaccine data in the Norwegian Veterinary Prescription Register (VetReg)

Udhwani,

Dean,

Sommerset

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Background Vaccination of farmed salmonids has been an integral part of preventing infectious diseases in Norway’s aquaculture industry. The Norwegian government regulates the use of vaccines and there is a need to monitor vaccine usage for both regulatory and research purposes, at local and national scales. The Norwegian Veterinary Prescription Register (VetReg) is a national database that includes all prescriptions of medicines to animals dispensed by pharmacies and all medicines used for food producing animals by veterinarians. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the quality of fish vaccination data reported to VetReg in 2016–2022. We considered the following attributes: completeness, validity, and timeliness. For external validation, we compared the data in VetReg to wholesaler statistics. Results Pharmacies reported fish vaccines to VetReg in a variety of quantity units, including doses and volumes, which required us to harmonize the data to a single unit. Harmonization was not possible for nine percent of the records, which were mainly bath vaccines reported in doses. We identified specific issues that required manual editing of the units of 1 percent of the records. After exclusions, we validated individual variables such as product codes and location identifiers using external registers. Some variables, such as the ‘number of animals’, were inconsistent for 31 percent of the records. The coverage of vaccine data in VetReg ranged from 81 to 113 percent for the ten most sold vaccines in 2020–2022 as compared to wholesales statistics. For the timeliness, we found that 75 percent of the records were submitted within 25 days for all years. Conclusions Overall, we found that the fish vaccination data in VetReg was of sufficient quality to monitor injectable vaccine usage at hatcheries after 2020. We identified issues at the product level, with bath vaccines, and with single variables (number of animals, weight, and species). We recommend that quality can be improved by reporting all vaccines in volume rather than doses, reporting a single vaccine prescription per report, and including a deadline for pharmacies to report in the legislation.

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“…As our capacity to collect and store these data rapidly increases, a new challenge of transforming the data into meaningful information about animal health for disease monitoring is arising [8–10]. In Denmark, the current governmental and industry-owned databases cover different aspects of animal health data, including changes in infectious disease status in terms of endemic disease in subpopulations, antibiotic usage, and mortality [11]. All farmers within the European Union are obliged to send animal carcasses to rendering plants for food safety and traceability purposes [12], which ensures a continuous data flow of mortality data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unweaving tangled mortality and antibiotic consumption data to detect disease outbreaks – Peaks, growths, and foresight in swine production

Antunes

Jensen

2019

PLoS ONE

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As our capacity to collect and store health data is increasing, a new challenge of transforming data into meaningful information for disease monitoring and surveillance has arisen. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of using livestock mortality and antibiotic consumption data as a proxy for detecting disease outbreaks at herd level. Changes in the monthly records of mortality and antibiotic consumption were monitored in Danish swine herds that became positive for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and porcine pleuropneumonia. Laboratory serological results were used to identify herds that changed from a negative to a positive status for the diseases. A dynamic linear model with a linear growth component was used to model the data. Alarms about state changes were raised based on forecast errors, changes in the growth component, and the values of the retrospectively smoothed values of the growth component. In all cases, the alarms were defined based on credible intervals and assessed prior and after herds got a positive disease status. The number of herds with alarms based on mortality increased by 3% in the 3 months prior to laboratory confirmation of PRRS-positive herds (Se = 0.47). A 22% rise in the number of weaner herds with alarms based on the consumption of antibiotics for respiratory diseases was found 1 month prior to these herds becoming PRRS-positive (Se = 0.22). For porcine pleuropneumonia-positive herds, a 10% increase in antibiotic consumption for respiratory diseases in sow herds was seen 1 month prior to a positive result (Se = 0.5). Monitoring changes in mortality data and antibiotic consumption showed changes at herd level prior to and in the same month as confirmation from diagnostic tests. These results also show a potential value for using these data streams as part of surveillance strategies.

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Building the foundation for veterinary register‐based epidemiology: A systematic approach to data quality assessment and validation

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

An observational field study of porcine post-weaning diarrhea: clinical and microbiological findings, and fecal pH-measurements as a potential diagnostic tool

An observational field study of porcine post-weaning diarrhea: clinical and microbiological findings, and fecal pH-measurements as a potential diagnostic tool

Quality assessment of fish vaccine data in the Norwegian Veterinary Prescription Register (VetReg)

Unweaving tangled mortality and antibiotic consumption data to detect disease outbreaks – Peaks, growths, and foresight in swine production

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