Abstract
BackgroundThe use of secondary data is widespread in a range of surveillance and monitoring applications because of the low cost and high availability associated with this form of data. However, as they are often collected for quite unrelated purposes, they are not necessarily fit for the new purpose that is required of them. Routine meat inspection data were originally collected with the purpose of safeguarding food, but have been re-tasked to also include animal welfare assessment. The objective of the present study was to compare the recording of pericarditis, pleuritis and lungs with lesions at routine meat inspection (RMI) with those performed at systematic health monitoring (SHM) in Danish pigs at slaughter, in order to assess the usefulness of RMI for monitoring the prevalence of these diseases. Data originating from 165 Danish pig herds were collected in the period September 2011 to November 2013. From each herd, a batch consisting of all pigs slaughtered on a specific day from a specific farm were included as the RMI data, while lungs and hearts sampled from the batches were used for the SHM. The RMI data and SHM data included recordings related to a) chronic pericarditis, b) chronic pleuritis and c) lung lesions. The proportion of carcases with a specific disease recording was estimated for each batch of pigs, and linear regression was used to relate the RMI-proportion to the SHM-proportion for the conditions mentioned above.ResultsThe coefficients of determination (R2) were estimated as R2,pericarditis = 0.16; R2,pleuritis = 0.67; R2,lungs with lesions = 0.40. R2,pericarditis changed to 0.42 when the regression analysis included inspection type at the abattoir (with purely visual inspection of the hearts versus traditional inspection including an incision into the heart).ConclusionsOverall, the results suggest that the correlation between findings at RMI and SHM was moderate for pleuritis and lungs with lesions, but poor for pericarditis. The latter could partly be explained by the type of meat inspection conducted at the abattoir. We conclude that caution should be used whenever RMI data are used for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended.
Highlights
The use of secondary data is widespread in a range of surveillance and monitoring applications because of the low cost and high availability associated with this form of data
All pig carcasses are subject to routine meat inspection (RMI) according to EU and Danish legislation [1,2] for the purposes of safeguarding food and animal welfare at slaughter
The recorded changes were the proportion of pigs with: i) Chronic pericarditis; ii) Chronic pleuritis; and iii) Lesions in the lungs
Summary
The use of secondary data is widespread in a range of surveillance and monitoring applications because of the low cost and high availability associated with this form of data. Whereas meat inspection was originally introduced to find food not suitable for human consumption (c.f.[3]), there is a drive to use these ‘cheap’ secondary data source for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended; for example animal welfare control and assessments [4,5]. These data may not provide useful estimates of herd health because they may not meet the fitness-for-purpose criterion. The threshold for recording of abnormalities may be related to different purposes, but may be related to variation among observers
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