Livestock owners normally pay the full cost of disease testing. As a result the number of laboratory submissions is dependent on the owner's perception that testing is beneficial. This decreases the likelihood of an accurate diagnosis and biases the number and type of samples received by a laboratory. Despite these limitations, laboratory data are commonly used for passive disease surveillance. The Ontario Farm-call Surveillance Project (OFSP) analyzed disease-related farm call data supplied by livestock veterinarians. Project goals were to provide a new data source for livestock disease monitoring and to improve the quality of laboratory data. As an incentive for participation, veterinarians were not charged when diagnostic samples were sent to the Animal Health Laboratory (AHL), University of Guelph.
Objective
To evaluate free diagnostic testing as an incentive for compliance with a livestock disease surveillance program.