3.2 Respondent’s characteristics
The most represented age group was 41-50 years old with 82 respondents,
followed by 51-60 (53 counts), 31-40 (51 counts), over 60 (14 counts)
and the lowest group 20-30 (13 counts). The years of work experience
ranged from 1 year to 40 with the majority of the respondents (38%)
having between 11 and 20 years’ experience.
The number of respondents, who were carrying out their professional
activities in a single country was 145 (13 of which did not specify
which country) represented by 66 different countries. The
countries were Belgium, France and Ireland with 18, 10 and 6 counts
respectively. Ecuador, Niger, Tunisia, Vietnam at 5 counts each; Algeria
with 4 counts; Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland
3 counts each; Estonia, Greece, Israel, Kenya, Norway, Portugal,
Romania, Singapore, South Africa, and Spain 2 counts each. The rest of
the indicated countries had one count each: Afghanistan, Albania,
Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Benin, Bulgaria,
Burundi, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Eswatini,
Finland, Georgia, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iraq,
Ivory Coast, Libya, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mongolia, Nepal,
Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Serbia,
Slovakia, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and
Zambia (Figure 1) .
A total of 68 professionals were working in several countries (i.e. at
international level) of which 30 worked both in European and
non-European countries, 20 in European countries only and 18 in non-
European countries only.
For type of employment, field of competency and responsibilities
regarding animal disease threats, the number of responses varied. Each
respondent could answer more than one option, therefore the number of
answers were higher than the number of respondents. Regarding the type
of employment (total number of responses N = 272), respondents were
mainly employed in government institutions (112/272), followed by
research institutions (65/272), universities (52/272), international
organizations (16/272), private companies (9/272), as sector
representatives (5/272) and lastly as animal producers with 3/272. There
were 12/272 respondents which marked the option “other”. They further
specified that they were employed as private veterinarians (6/274), in
consultancy companies (2/272), different non-governmental associations
(3/272) and 1/272 was a retired professional. The most common fields of
competency (total number of responses N= 433) were animal health and
public health with 191/433 and 92/433 respondents, respectively. Food
safety had 62/433, animal welfare 55/433, environment 15/433 and plant
health 5/433. There were 16 respondents for the option “other” where 5
further specified animal husbandry, 3 animal conservation and economics,
parasitology, epidemiology, global health, insect pest control,
microbiology veterinary epidemiology and wildlife health, each had 1
count. As for their responsibilities regarding animal disease threats,
many respondents answered with more than one option (total number of
responses N = 554) with risk assessment (134/554) and signal capture
(102/554) having the highest counts. Risk communication followed with
85/557 counts, risk management with 77/554, policy making with (66/554)
and decision making with 61/554. There were 32 counts for the option
“other” where on specification research and funding (9/32) and
surveillance and control (8/32) had the highest counts. Other
respondents’ specifications were not clear in their meaning – these
were not analysed any further.
Three univariate Poisson models (one per question on: type of
employment, field of competency and responsibilities related to animal
disease threats) were made to observe any differences in frequency of
use (outcome variable for all 3). The following types of employment were
not included in the analysis due to low counts (i.e. less than 17
counts): animal producer, sector representative, private company (e.g.
pharmaceutical company, animal nutrition company). Using the category
“university” as the reference, the two types of employment that were
significantly higher in use than university in decreasing order were
international organization (e.g. FAO, OIE, NGO) and government
institutions. Type of employment in a research/scientific institution
was not significant; hence, the frequency of use of animal information
systems is the same as for university.
Three fields were excluded (environment, plant health and other) from
the Poisson model for the field of competency, for the same reason
mentioned above in type of employment. Remaining categories were not
significant. The same result was obtained for the question, “what is
(are) your responsibility(ies)” related to animal disease threat, none
were significant.
Experts mentioned that the key words which best described their areas of
expertise were: epidemiology (59 times); animal health (43 times);
zoonoses (20 times); surveillance (16 times); food safety (15 times);
microbiology (12 times); animal husbandry (11 times); animal welfare (9
times); veterinary and veterinary epidemiology (8 times each);
biosecurity (7 times); and contingency planning and virology (7 times
each) (Figure 2 ).