Methods and Processes of Developing the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology – Veterinary (STROBE-Vet) Statement

BACKGROUND Reporting of observational studies in veterinary research presents challenges that often are not addressed in published reporting guidelines. OBJECTIVE To develop an extension of the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) statement that addresses unique reporting requirements for observational studies in veterinary medicine related to health, production, welfare, and food safety. DESIGN Consensus meeting of experts. SETTING Mississauga, Canada. PARTICIPANTS Seventeen experts from North America, Europe, and Australia. METHODS Experts completed a pre-meeting survey about whether items in the STROBE statement should be modified or added to address unique issues related to observational studies in animal species with health, production, welfare, or food safety outcomes. During the meeting, each STROBE item was discussed to determine whether or not rewording was recommended and whether additions were warranted. Anonymous voting was used to determine consensus. RESULTS Six items required no modifications or additions. Modifications or additions were made to the STROBE items 1 (title and abstract), 3 (objectives), 5 (setting), 6 (participants), 7 (variables), 8 (data sources/measurement), 9 (bias), 10 (study size), 12 (statistical methods), 13 (participants), 14 (descriptive data), 15 (outcome data), 16 (main results), 17 (other analyses), 19 (limitations), and 22 (funding). CONCLUSION The methods and processes used were similar to those used for other extensions of the STROBE statement. The use of this STROBE statement extension should improve reporting of observational studies in veterinary research by recognizing unique features of observational studies involving food-producing and companion animals, products of animal origin, aquaculture, and wildlife

Multiple imputation in veterinary epidemiological studies: a case study and simulation

The problem of missing data occurs frequently in veterinary epidemiological studies. Most studies use a complete case (CC) analysis which excludes all observations for which any relevant variable have missing values. Alternative approaches (most notably multiple imputation (MI)) which avoid the exclusion of observations with missing values are now widely available but have been used very little in veterinary epidemiology.This paper uses a case study based on research into dairy producers' attitudes toward mastitis control procedures, combined with two simulation studies to evaluate the use of MI and compare results with a CC analysis. MI analysis of the original data produced results which had relatively minor differences from the CC analysis. However, most of the missing data in the original data set were in the dependent variable and a subsequent simulation study based on the observed missing data pattern and 1000 simulations showed that an MI analysis would not be expected to offer any advantages over a CC analysis in this situation. This was true regardless of the missing data mechanism (MCAR - missing completely at random, MAR - missing at random, or NMAR - not missing at random) underlying the missing values. Surprisingly, recent textbooks dealing with MI make little reference to this limitation of MI for dealing with missing values in the dependent variable.An additional simulation study (1000 runs for each of the three missing data mechanisms) compared MI and CC analyses for data in which varying levels (n = 7) of missing data were created in predictor variables. This study showed that MI analyses generally produced results that were less biased on average, were more precise (smaller SEs), were more consistent (less variability between simulation runs) and consequently were more likely to produce estimates that were close to the "truth" (results obtained from a data set with no missing values). While the benefit of MI varied with the mechanism used to generate the missing data, MI always performed as well as, or better than; CC analysis

Relationship between Tibial conformation, cage size and advancement achieved in TTA procedure

Previous studies have suggested that there is a theoretical discrepancy between the cage size and the resultant tibial tuberosity advancement, with the cage size consistently providing less tibial tuberosity advancement than predicted. The purpose of this study was to test and quantify this in clinical cases. The hypothesis was that the advancement of the tibial tuberosity as measured by the widening of the proximal tibia at the tibial tuberosity level after a standard TTA, will be less than the cage sized used, with no particular cage size providing a relative smaller or higher under-advancement, and that the conformation of the proximal tibia will have an influence on the amount of advancement achieved

Direct and indirect effects of Johne's disease on farm and animal productivity in an Irish dairy herd

Johne's disease (JD) is caused by infection with the organism Mycobacterium avium spp. paratuberculosis, leading to chronic diarrhoea and ill thrift in adult cattle. JD is considered to adversely affect farm performance and profitability. This retrospective case study was undertaken on a single commercial dairy herd in the south west of Ireland. Animal production records were interrogated to assess the effect of JD on milk yield (total kg per lactation), somatic cell count (the geometric mean over the lactation), reasons for culling, cull price and changes in herd parity structure over time. JD groups were defined using clinical signs and test results. One control animal was matched to each case animal on parity number and year. Specific lactations (clinical, pre-clinical and test-positive only) from 1994 to 2004 were compared between JD case and control cows. A significantly lower milk yield (1259.3 kg/lactation) was noted from cows with clinical JD in comparison to their matched control group. Clinical animals had an average cull price of €516 less than animals culled without signs of clinical disease. In contrast, little effect was noted for sub-clinical infections. These direct effects of JD infections, in combination with increased culling for infertility and increasing replacement rates, had a negative impact on farm production. Results from this study provide preliminary information regarding the effects of JD status on both herd and animal-level performance in Ireland

Interspecific visitation of cattle and badgers to fomites: A transmission risk for bovine tuberculosis?

Publication history: Accepted - 23 April 2019In Great Britain and Ireland, badgers (Meles meles ) are a wildlife reservoir of Mycobacterium bovis and implicated in bovine tuberculosis transmission to domestic cattle. The route of disease transmission is unknown with direct, so‐called “nose‐to‐nose,” contact between hosts being extremely rare. Camera traps were deployed for 64,464 hr on 34 farms to quantify cattle and badger visitation rates in space and time at six farm locations. Badger presence never coincided with cattle presence at the same time, with badger and cattle detection at the same location but at different times being negatively correlated. Badgers were never recorded within farmyards during the present study. Badgers utilized cattle water troughs in fields, but detections were infrequent (equivalent to one badger observed drinking every 87 days). Cattle presence at badger‐associated locations, for example, setts and latrines, were three times more frequent than badger presence at cattle‐associated locations, for example, water troughs. Preventing cattle access to badger setts and latrines and restricting badger access to cattle water troughs may potentially reduce interspecific bTB transmission through reduced indirect contact.This study was part of a PhD studentship funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA)