Scoping review on farmer information sources for animal health

Livestock farmers are the central decision makers for control of most endemic diseases, which makes them a vital stakeholder for the effective communication of information created from disease surveillance. We conducted a scoping review of the relevant scientific literature following PRISMA standards to identify the most common information channels or networks through which farmers receive information about animal health or disease. We found 50 articles that met our inclusion criteria (see methods section) by searching the electronic databases PubMed and Web of Science from 1960 – Feb 2025. Most of the articles (n = 34) came from the UK. Most of the studies targeted cattle farmers (n = 31), followed by sheep farmers (n = 19) and pig farmers (n = 10). Farmers were reported to receive information from a wide variety of sources. Veterinarians were reported to be the most important information source (n = 36). Other sources reported to be important were nutritionists and foot trimers (n = 1), other farmers (n = 1), farmer associations and schemes (n = 1) and the farm press (n = 1). Five studies reported that a combination of different sources was the most effective for communicating to farmers. From this study, we can conclude that veterinarians are the primary animal health/disease information source for farmers and should always be included when designing strategies to communicate health/disease related information to farmer. Other information sources are less important but should be included when communication is intended to reach as many farmers as possible.