TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of animal health compensation on 'positive' behaviours towards exotic disease reporting and implementing biosecurity: a review, a synthesis and a research agenda
AU - Barnes, AP
AU - Moxey, AP
AU - Vosough Ahmadi, B
AU - Borthwick, FA
N1 - 2093347
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - With an increasing burden on public sector budgets, increased responsibility and cost sharing
mechanisms for animal diseases are being considered. To achieve this, fiscal and non-fiscal
intervention policies need to be designed such that they consistently promote positive disease
risk management practices by animal keepers. This paper presents a review of the available
evidence towards whether and how the level and type of funding mechanism affects change
within biosecurity behaviours and the frequency of disease reporting. A Nuffield Health
Ladder of Interventions approach is proposed as a way to frame the debate surrounding both
current compensation mechanisms and how it is expected to change behaviour. Results of the
review reveal a division between economic modelling approaches, which implicitly assume a
causal link between payments and positive behaviours, and socio-geographic approaches
which tend to ignore the influence of compensation mechanisms on influencing behaviours.
Generally, economic studies suggest less than full compensation rates will encourage positive
behaviours, but the non-economic literature indicate significant variation in response to
compensation reflecting heterogeneity of livestock keepers in terms of their values, goals,
risk attitudes, size of operation, animal species and production chain characteristics. This may
be of encouragement to Western Governments seeking to shift cost burdens as it may induce
greater targeting of non-fiscal mechanisms, or suggest more novel ways to augment current
compensation mechanisms to both increase responsibility sharing and reduce this cost
burden. This review suggests that a range of regulatory, fiscal and nudging policies are
required to achieve socially optimal results with respect to positive behaviour change.
However, the lack of directly available evidence which proves these causal links may hinder
progress towards this optimal mixture of choice and non-choice based interventions.
AB - With an increasing burden on public sector budgets, increased responsibility and cost sharing
mechanisms for animal diseases are being considered. To achieve this, fiscal and non-fiscal
intervention policies need to be designed such that they consistently promote positive disease
risk management practices by animal keepers. This paper presents a review of the available
evidence towards whether and how the level and type of funding mechanism affects change
within biosecurity behaviours and the frequency of disease reporting. A Nuffield Health
Ladder of Interventions approach is proposed as a way to frame the debate surrounding both
current compensation mechanisms and how it is expected to change behaviour. Results of the
review reveal a division between economic modelling approaches, which implicitly assume a
causal link between payments and positive behaviours, and socio-geographic approaches
which tend to ignore the influence of compensation mechanisms on influencing behaviours.
Generally, economic studies suggest less than full compensation rates will encourage positive
behaviours, but the non-economic literature indicate significant variation in response to
compensation reflecting heterogeneity of livestock keepers in terms of their values, goals,
risk attitudes, size of operation, animal species and production chain characteristics. This may
be of encouragement to Western Governments seeking to shift cost burdens as it may induce
greater targeting of non-fiscal mechanisms, or suggest more novel ways to augment current
compensation mechanisms to both increase responsibility sharing and reduce this cost
burden. This review suggests that a range of regulatory, fiscal and nudging policies are
required to achieve socially optimal results with respect to positive behaviour change.
However, the lack of directly available evidence which proves these causal links may hinder
progress towards this optimal mixture of choice and non-choice based interventions.
KW - Behaviours
KW - Biosecurity
KW - Compensation
KW - Exotic diseases
KW - Nuffield ladder
U2 - 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2015.09.003
DO - 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2015.09.003
M3 - Review article
SN - 1873-1716
VL - 122
SP - 42
EP - 52
JO - Preventive Veterinary Medicine
JF - Preventive Veterinary Medicine
IS - 1-2
ER -