Cattle farmer psychosocial profiles and their association with control strategies for bovine viral diarrhea

Abstract

Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) is endemic in the United Kingdom and causes major economic losses. Control is largely voluntary for individual farmers and is likely to be influenced by psychosocial factors, such as altruism, trust, and psychological proximity (feeling close) to relevant "others," such as farmers, veterinarians, the government, and their cows. These psychosocial factors (factors with both psychological and social aspects) are important determinants of how people make decisions related to their own health, many of which have not been studied in the context of infectious disease control by farmers. Farmer psychosocial profiles were investigated using multiple validated measures in an observational survey of 475 UK cattle farmers using the capability, opportunity, motivation-behavior (COM-B) framework. Farmers were clustered by their BVD control practices using latent class analysis. Farmers were split into 5 BVD control behavior classes, which were tested for associations with the psychosocial and COM-B factors using multinomial logistic regression, with doing nothing as the baseline class. Farmers who were controlling disease both for themselves and others were more likely to do something to control BVD (e.g., test, vaccinate). Farmers who did not trust other farmers, had high psychological capability (knowledge and understanding of how to control disease), and had high physical opportunity (time and money to control disease) were more likely to have a closed, separate herd and test. Farmers who did not trust other farmers were also more likely to undertake many prevention strategies with an open herd. Farmers with high automatic motivation (habits and emotions) and reflective motivation (decisions and goals) were more likely to vaccinate and test, alone or in combination with other controls. Farmers with high psychological proximity (feeling of closeness) to their veterinarian were more likely to undertake many prevention strategies in an open herd. Farmers with high psychological proximity to dairy farmers and low psychological proximity to beef farmers were more likely to keep their herd closed and separate and test or vaccinate and test. Farmers who had a lot of trust in other farmers and invested in them, rather than keeping everything for themselves, were more likely to be careful introducing new stock and test. In conclusion, farmer psychosocial factors were associated with strategies for BVD control in UK cattle farmers. Psychological proximity to veterinarians was a novel factor associated with proactive BVD control and was more important than the more extensively investigated trust. These findings highlight the importance of a close veterinarian-farmer relationship and are important for promoting effective BVD control by farmers, which has implications for successful nationwide BVD control and eradication schemes.

Incorporating heterogeneity in farmer disease control behaviour into a livestock disease transmission model

“…This behaviour is consistent with the behavioural label of parasitism 18 , waiting to see what happens to others rst and expecting to be protected by other farmers vaccinating their herds, only vaccinating if it becomes necessary. Other research has identi ed that high trust in farmers to control disease can reduce the disease prevention behaviours farmers use in their own herd because they perceive their risk of disease from other farms to be low 24,50 , therefore this can be a barrier in disease control. Veterinary advice is generally trusted by farmers 25,27 and this could be a route to promoting interventions to achieve prompt uptake and better epidemic control.…”

“…Psychological proximity has implications for human health behaviour [29][30][31] but to date has received little investigation in farmer behaviour for controlling livestock disease. Farmers with high psychological proximity to their veterinarian are more likely to control bovine viral diarrhoea in their herd 24 . Behaviour is also in uenced by capability, opportunity and motivation which are theorised in the COM-B behaviour change framework 32 .…”

Modelling livestock infectious disease control policy under differing social perspectives on vaccination behaviour

“…For example, dependent upon the disease that is circulating, an individual farmer may accept the risk of infection rather than proactively cull their livestock; yet culling may be a powerful tool to prevent large-scale outbreaks of some diseases. Elicitation of cattle farmer psychosocial beliefs have identified multiple factors as having an association with proactive undertaking of control measures, which include the importance of veterinarians as a source of information, a lack of trust in other farmers, the individual experiences of farmers, and the knowledge and understanding of how and why to control disease and availability of time and money to enact the control [ 8 , 9 ]. To formulate livestock disease intervention policies that will be highly adhered to by all stakeholders, there is a need to quantify, predict and hence mitigate these inevitable tensions between local (farmer-led) and global (regionally- and nationally-enforced) perspectives of control.…”

Estimating freedom from infection

“…Understanding the association between farmer behavior and BVDV control at farm level could help reduce the risk of introduction or persistent infections with BVDV. It has been found that the engagement of farmers in BVDV control is important for successful eradication or maintaining freedom at the national level (Prosser et al, 2022;Evans et al, 2018). Farmers psychosocial factors were shown to be linked to BVDV control strategies e.g.…”

“…Farmers psychosocial factors were shown to be linked to BVDV control strategies e.g. farmers that did not trust other farmers were more likely to have a closed herd, farmers with a good connection with their veterinarian were more likely to adopt BVDV control measures (Prosser et al, 2022). In the STOC free framework such factors could be included as risk factors.…”