Traumatic Stress of Frontline Workers in Culling Livestock Animals in South Korea

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Though culling is an effective measure for controlling animal diseases, it could have detrimental effects on mental health among frontline workers, and poses ethical problems concerning the treatment of animals. This research investigates the stress from culling and its effect on workers’ mental health. The data from an online survey of frontline workers showed that the working condition was very hard on them, causing adverse effects such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Three-fourths of the respondents were identified as being from a high-risk group in terms of mental health. Further analysis revealed sequential causation, where workers with greater pro-animal attitudes felt more hardship in performing culling jobs, which triggered stronger negative emotions and resulted in higher PTSD scores. A regulation to implement processes for reducing the impacts of culling and ex-post measures for the workers is required to prevent the negative effects of culling on workers. ABSTRACT: The last decade brought several devastating outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and avian influenza in South Korea, which had been handled through preventive culling, despite the controversy surrounding its efficiency and ethical considerations. Notably, the lack of regulations on culling processes has exposed the workers to extremely harsh working conditions. This study investigates the effect of culling jobs on the mental health of the frontline workers, based on 200 samples collected through a web-based survey conducted on participants with experience of culling tasks. Culling was found to have a powerful negative effect on the workers’ mental health, including high depression rates. Of those surveyed, 83.7% answered that the working conditions were intense, and 74.5% showed scores above the cutoff point for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A regression analysis revealed that individual’s attitudes toward animals mediated the effect of culling experience on PTSD symptoms. However, mental health care for the workers has been insufficient: 70.2% of the respondents were willing to get mental treatment to deal with the distress they underwent from culling. We conclude that engagement in culling has a detrimental effect on the workers’ mental health, and that they should be provided with systematic mental health care.