Interpretation and utility of the Animal Health Loss Envelope as part of the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) analytical process

The Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) programme follows a multistage process to produce disease burden estimates in livestock and farmed aquatic animal production systems. The GBADs programme has broad goals of inclusivity, transparency and rigour. Meeting those goals means providing users of all levels of technical expertise with a clear explanation of the programmes output. In this way, we seek to ensure that the meaning and limitations of those results are clearly understood, minimising the risk of misinterpretation.

The first published estimates of disease burden have been calculated at farm-level using a model called the Animal Health Loss Envelope. This model estimates the cost of lost productivity and expenditure on disease control for profit-maximising producers by comparing current system performance to a hypothetical ‘ideal health’ scenario. This ideal is a farm-specific concept and is critically different from an ideal health state when physiologically defined. The model and its key concepts are described in this article.