Climate Change and Animal Health: The Role of Surveillance Systems

Abstract

Surveillance is an action-oriented tool for the timely collection of information about changing health and disease risks. As a basis for decision making, animal health surveillance has been a critical element of health systems since the domestication of livestock. Climate change poses unique challenges for animal surveillance, and current systems must evolve to meet present and future needs. However, designing “climate change ready” animal health surveillance systems will not be without challenges. These challenges include harmonizing data between sources and handling bias in data collection, an expansion from the focus on disease to health, seasonality impacts, animal and disease clustering, animal movements and trade, and the unexpected nature of health impacts related to climate change. Conducting animal-health surveillance in a rapidly changing world means our systems must be agile and adaptable to unexpected events and future surprises. Putting “health” into health surveillance necessitates an expansion from surveillance of negative outcomes we want to avoid toward also tracking the assets we wish to protect. Vulnerability surveillance expands the conversation from disease-focused surveillance to describing the characteristics and circumstances that make populations, places, and animals more likely or prone to be harmed by a hazard. Climate change will disproportionally impact the most vulnerable animals, people, and places. Therefore, assessment of vulnerability ultimately provides insight into the resiliency of animals when exposed to the harms and hazards of climate change. Interdisciplinary teams will facilitate strategic use of resources and improve our ability to utilize surveillance data for health intelligence. Strengthening surveillance capacities will lead to better support for climate change adaption actions. The need for surveillance innovations has never been greater.