Linkages between animal and human health sentinel data

Scotch, Matthew; Odofin, Lynda; Rabinowitz, Peter

doi:10.1186/1746-6148-5-15

Cited by 49 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Consequently, we believe that with the increase in available data, and improvements in data science methods, the scientific and medical research community can now incorporate these non-biological factors when investigating complex biological processes such as aging. Given that dogs and humans share many environmental risk factors such as the same air and water pollutants, similar levels of exercise by exercising together, and similar potential economic constraints, such as access to medical care, the potential of the dog both as a sentinel (30) and translational model is high.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple morbidities in companion dogs: a novel model for investigating age-related disease

Jin

Hoffman

Creevy

et al. 2016

Pathobiology of Aging & Age-related Diseases

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The proportion of men and women surviving over 65 years has been steadily increasing over the last century. In their later years, many of these individuals are afflicted with multiple chronic conditions, placing increasing pressure on healthcare systems. The accumulation of multiple health problems with advanced age is well documented, yet the causes are poorly understood. Animal models have long been employed in attempts to elucidate these complex mechanisms with limited success. Recently, the domestic dog has been proposed as a promising model of human aging for several reasons. Mean lifespan shows twofold variation across dog breeds. In addition, dogs closely share the environments of their owners, and substantial veterinary resources are dedicated to comprehensive diagnosis of conditions in dogs. However, while dogs are therefore useful for studying multimorbidity, little is known about how aging influences the accumulation of multiple concurrent disease conditions across dog breeds. The current study examines how age, body weight, and breed contribute to variation in multimorbidity in over 2,000 companion dogs visiting private veterinary clinics in England. In common with humans, we find that the number of diagnoses increases significantly with age in dogs. However, we find no significant weight or breed effects on morbidity number. This surprising result reveals that while breeds may vary in their average longevity and causes of death, their age-related trajectories of morbidities differ little, suggesting that age of onset of disease may be the source of variation in lifespan across breeds. Future studies with increased sample sizes and longitudinal monitoring may help us discern more breed-specific patterns in morbidity. Overall, the large increase in multimorbidity seen with age in dogs mirrors that seen in humans and lends even more credence to the value of companion dogs as models for human morbidity and mortality.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple morbidities in companion dogs: a novel model for investigating age-related disease

Jin

Hoffman

Creevy

et al. 2016

Pathobiology of Aging & Age-related Diseases

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As many infectious and degenerative conditions occur similarly in both humans and animals, the introduction of a spatial perspective in veterinary epidemiology is considered to provide a better understanding of shared risk factors related to specific environmental settings (Scotch et al, 2009). Of particular interest is the role of companion animals, which are considered sentinels or comparative models for estimating human exposures to environmental pollutants (Reif, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Approach to Veterinary Spatial Epidemiology: Dasymetric Refinement of the Swiss Dog Tumor Registry Data

Boo

Fabrikant

Leyk

2015

ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In spatial epidemiology, disease incidence and demographic data are commonly summarized within larger regions such as administrative units because of privacy concerns. As a consequence, analyses using these aggregated data are subject to the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) as the geographical manifestation of ecological fallacy. In this study, we create small area disease estimates through dasymetric refinement, and investigate the effects on predictive epidemiological models. We perform a binary dasymetric refinement of municipality-aggregated dog tumor incidence counts in Switzerland for the year 2008 using residential land as a limiting ancillary variable. This refinement is expected to improve the quality of spatial data originally aggregated within arbitrary administrative units by deconstructing them into discontinuous subregions that better reflect the underlying population distribution. To shed light on effects of this refinement, we compare a predictive statistical model that uses unrefined administrative units with one that uses dasymetrically refined spatial units. Model diagnostics and spatial distributions of model residuals are assessed to evaluate the model performances in different regions. In particular, we explore changes in the spatial autocorrelation of the model residuals due to spatial refinement of the enumeration units in a selected mountainous region, where the rugged topography induces great shifts of the analytical units i.e., residential land. Such spatial data quality refinement results in a more realistic estimation of the population distribution within administrative units, and thus, in a more accurate modeling of dog tumor incidence patterns. Our results emphasize the benefits of implementing a dasymetric modeling framework in veterinary spatial epidemiology.

show abstract

“…Examples include the emergence of zoonotic diseases in wildlife populations, concurrent with a novel outbreak of disease in humans, such as West Nile virus, SARS, and avian influenza (Scotch et al 2009). Wild animals can also act as indicators of diseases circulating among domestic animals or other wildlife.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of evidence of paratuberculosis in wild canids from Southwestern Europe

et al. 2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wild carnivores are at the top of the trophic chain. They are predators and carrion consumers, and thus, prone to come in contact with disease agents contaminating the environment or infecting live or dead animals. We hypothesized that wild canids could be used as sentinels for the detection of regions with higher Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP) prevalence in wild and domestic animals. To test this hypothesis, we set up an ELISA to test 262 wolf (Canis lupus) and fox (Vulpes vulpes) sera for MAP-specific antibodies and processed a subset of samples for culture (n= 61), MAP-specific PCR (15) and histopathology (14). In wolves, the optical density (OD) values in the ELISA were continuously distributed. Ten fox sera (4%) had OD readings of over twice the mean, suggesting contact with mycobacteria. However, all samples tested by PCR were negative for both IS900 and ISMAP02 sequences, and samples cultured for MAP yielded no growth. No visible paratuberculosis or tuberculosis-compatible lesions were recorded. On histopathological examination, no lesions compatible with mycobacterial diseases were observed. These results suggest that wild canids show little or no evidence of paratuberculosis and are unlikely to be useful sentinels for the detection of MAP in Southwestern Europe.

show abstract

Linkages between animal and human health sentinel data

Cited by 49 publications

References 61 publications

Multiple morbidities in companion dogs: a novel model for investigating age-related disease

Multiple morbidities in companion dogs: a novel model for investigating age-related disease

A Novel Approach to Veterinary Spatial Epidemiology: Dasymetric Refinement of the Swiss Dog Tumor Registry Data

Lack of evidence of paratuberculosis in wild canids from Southwestern Europe

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About