A global review of approaches to animal health priority setting and resource allocation, 2000 -2021: A structured, systematic scoping review

Objective The objective of this scoping review was to identify and describe methods that have been used to prioritise animal diseases to allocate resources for interventions associated with disease control, surveillance or research. Materials and methods Three electronic databases (Medline/PubMed, Embase and CAB Abstracts) were searched using syntax with inclusion and exclusion criteria. The search identified 6395 articles after de-duplication. Upon manual searching, an additional 64 articles were added. A total of 6460 articles were finally imported to an online systematic review management software (sysrev.com) for screening. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 532 articles passed the first screening and after the second round of screening, 336 were recommended for a full review. Results The main methods of disease prioritisation identified were based on economic analysis, multi-criteria evaluation, risk assessment (qualitative, quantitative or semi-quantitative), simple ranking, spatial risk mapping and simulation modelling. Disease prioritisation was performed for the following reasons: 1) disease control, prevention or eradication strategies, 2) identification priority of diseases to inform general organisational strategy, 3) identification of high-risk areas or populations, 4) assessment of the risk of disease introduction or occurrence, 5) disease surveillance and 6) research priority setting. With regard to the geographical focus of the 336 articles prioritisation studies and assessments screened 49% had a national focus, 13% were local, 12% were regional, 7% were sub-national and 4% were global; 16% had no particular geographic focus. Conclusion This review describes the different approaches available for prioritising animal health investments and reflects on the pros and cons of different approaches. It also considers approaches used in other fields such as environment and human health and reflects on their suitability for animal health decision making

Age-Related Differences in Socio-demographic and Behavioral Determinants of HIV Testing and Counseling in HPTN 043/NIMH Project Accept

Youth represent a large proportion of new HIV infections worldwide, yet their utilization of HIV testing and counseling (HTC) remains low. Using the post-intervention, cross-sectional, population-based household survey done in 2011 as part of HPTN 043/NIMH Project Accept, a cluster-randomized trial of community mobilization and mobile HTC in South Africa (Soweto and KwaZulu Natal), Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Thailand, we evaluated age-related differences among socio-demographic and behavioral determinants of HTC in study participants by study arm, site, and gender. A multivariate logistic regression model was developed using complete individual data from 13,755 participants with recent HIV testing (prior 12 months) as the outcome. Youth (18–24 years) was not predictive of recent HTC, except for high-risk youth with multiple concurrent partners, who were less likely (aOR 0.75; 95% CI 0.61–0.92) to have recently been tested than youth reporting a single partner. Importantly, the intervention was successful in reaching men with site specific success ranging from aOR 1.27 (95% CI 1.05–1.53) in South Africa to aOR 2.30 in Thailand (95% CI 1.85–2.84). Finally, across a diverse range of settings, higher education (aOR 1.67; 95% CI 1.42, 1.96), higher socio-economic status (aOR 1.21; 95% CI 1.08–1.36), and marriage (aOR 1.55; 95% CI 1.37–1.75) were all predictive of recent HTC, which did not significantly vary across study arm, site, gender or age category (18–24 vs. 25–32 years)

The impact of sheep breed on the risk of classical scrapie

The risk of classical scrapie in sheep is associated with polymorphisms in the prion protein (PrP) gene. In recent years, large-scale selective breeding programmes for sheep at lower risk of disease have been undertaken across the European Union. We analysed large-scale datasets on scrapie and sheep demography to investigate additional effects of sheep breed on scrapie risk. There was evidence for variation between certain breeds in the scrapie risk of some PrP genotypes, which could be caused by innate breed differences or distinct scrapie strains circulating within them. While the PrP genotypes of cases are generally consistent across breeds, some exceptions provide evidence that scrapie strain may influence affected PrP genotypes to a greater extent than innate breed differences. There was a significant association between the breed-level incidence of scrapie and the frequency of susceptible PrP genotypes in breeds. Our results lend support to selective breeding programmes which aim to reduce the frequency of high-risk PrP genotypes with measures not varying by sheep breed

Metal and elastomer seal tests for accelerator applications

The vacuum system of the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has more than a thousand metal vacuum seals. Also, numerous elastomer seals are used throughout the AGS to seal large beam component chambers. An accelerator upgrade program is being implemented to reduce the AGS operating pressure by x100 and improve the reliability of the vacuum system. This paper describes work in progress on metal and elastomer vacuum seals to help meet those two objectives. Tests are reported on the sealing properties of a variety of metal seals used on different sealing surfaces. Results are also given on reversible sorption properties of certain elastomers. 16 refs., 6 figs., 4 tabs

Approaches for disease prioritization and decision-making in animal health, 2000–2021: a structured scoping review

This scoping review identifies and describes the methods used to prioritize diseases for resource allocation across disease control, surveillance, and research and the methods used generally in decision-making on animal health policy. Three electronic databases (Medline/PubMed, Embase, and CAB Abstracts) were searched for articles from 2000 to 2021. Searches identified 6, 395 articles after de-duplication, with an additional 64 articles added manually. A total of 6, 460 articles were imported to online document review management software (sysrev.com) for screening. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 532 articles passed the first screening, and after a second round of screening, 336 articles were recommended for full review. A total of 40 articles were removed after data extraction. Another 11 articles were added, having been obtained from cross-citations of already identified articles, providing a total of 307 articles to be considered in the scoping review. The results show that the main methods used for disease prioritization were based on economic analysis, multi-criteria evaluation, risk assessment, simple ranking, spatial risk mapping, and simulation modeling. Disease prioritization was performed to aid in decision-making related to various categories: (1) disease control, prevention, or eradication strategies, (2) general organizational strategy, (3) identification of high-risk areas or populations, (4) assessment of risk of disease introduction or occurrence, (5) disease surveillance, and (6) research priority setting. Of the articles included in data extraction, 50.5% had a national focus, 12.3% were local, 11.9% were regional, 6.5% were sub-national, and 3.9% were global. In 15.2% of the articles, the geographic focus was not specified. The scoping review revealed the lack of comprehensive, integrated, and mutually compatible approaches to disease prioritization and decision support tools for animal health. We recommend that future studies should focus on creating comprehensive and harmonized frameworks describing methods for disease prioritization and decision-making tools in animal health

Refurbishment of the vacuum system of the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

Three years ago a program was initiated at Brookhaven National Laboratory to upgrade the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) vacuum system. The three objectives of this work were to: (1) improve the vacuum system reliability; (2) improve its maintainability; and (3) improve its operating pressure from the present 2-3 /times/ 10/sup /minus/7/ Torr to < 10/sup /minus/8/ Torr. This paper discusses how these objectives can be met. 9 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab