Proactive dairy cattle disease control in the UK: veterinary surgeons' involvement and associated characteristics

Characteristics of 94 veterinary surgeons associated with delivering preventive herd-level strategies to control mastitis, lameness and Johne's disease were investigated using two multinomial models. The response variables were ‘Gold Standard Monitoring’ (including on-going data analysis, risk assessments and laboratory testing), and a lower level of involvement called ‘Regular Control Advice’. Although the sample was biased towards those who spend the majority of their time with dairy cows, 69 per cent currently had no involvement in Gold Standard Monitoring for lameness, 60 per cent no involvement with Johne's, and 52 per cent no involvement with mastitis. The final model predicted that an assistant without a postgraduate cattle qualification, who had spent no time on dairy cattle continuous professional development (CPD) in the last year, had an 88 per cent chance of having no involvement with Gold Standard Monitoring for any disease, versus <5 per cent chance for a CPD ‘enriched’ partner with a postgraduate cattle qualification; there was <1 per cent chance this assistant would be involved with Gold Standard Monitoring of all three diseases on one or more farms, versus a 58 per cent chance for this partner. CPD and employment status were also associated with markedly different probabilities for delivering Regular Control Advice. Increased postgraduate education may further veterinary involvement of this nature.