2020 OPEN SESSION OF THE STANDING TECHNICAL COMMITTEE OF THE EUFMD
Session 2-PM: From risk to actions: making them happen Chair: Prof. Katharina Staerk; Moderator: Dr Nick Lyons Summary Prof. Katharina Staerk chaired the session. The afternoon session included two live keynote speakers and four presentations sharing studies to address issues related to social science aspects. In particular, the talks concerned economics and communication, focusing on cost-benefit analysis and how it can assist risk managers in the prioritization of actions according to risk, and how risk communication can advocate for improved surveillance, prevention, and control in this digital era. Dr Karl Rich, ILRI, highlighted the methods for the economic evaluation of surveillance, prevention, and control measures considering TADs risk and cost of mitigation measures. He gave an overview of the previous methods used to assess the economic impact of the diseases, which were mainly a form of costbenefit analysis, by comparing the additional benefits of a decision or investment against the additional costs. However, with the recent approaches there are fundamental principles to be taken into consideration. For instance: - to focus beyond the farm-gate not only to assess the impact at the farm level, but on the other parts of the economy; - to understand the dynamic effects not to estimate the impact in a specific time, but to scrutinize the progress as a result of an intervention; - impact assessment need to dedicate a multidisciplinary team from economists, social scientists, epidemiologists, veterinarians, risk analysts and so on; - economics to be a part of the process, rather than taken on at the end; - behavioral effects across the system: how do diseases and their mitigations affect intrahousehold dynamics (gender), incentives, production practices; - Institutional effects: how the institutions that govern the veterinary control change the influence through the disease and disease mitigation strategies. In conclusion, he provided some examples of innovative methods and approaches. Dr Lisa Boden, University of Edinburgh, in her keynote, presented effective risk communication for animal disease emergencies. Risk communication is a multi-dimensional, iterative, and interactive process to exchange information and opinions between risk evaluators, risk managers, and other interested parties aiming at advancing knowledge through the understanding of attitudes, values, practices, and perceptions concerning risks. She mentioned modifying risk behavior and communicating trade-offs between costs and benefits and reducing the conflict through collaboration with other stakeholders. Dr Boden emphasized how the risk communication strategy can be developed through - Preparing and rehearsing ahead of time to emphasize the risk prevention messaging and risk communication preparedness; - knowing the audiences and their personal circumstances, and engaging them from the beginning to take into consideration the existing networks in which they are embedded, the power of asymmetries in society which make risky behaviors possible and also how to overcome the barriers that risk communication is facing such as language, cultural barriers, and misinformation; - considering credible communication channels: how, when, and by whom a message is delivered; - adapting to changing circumstances as the types of stakeholders' involvement should be changed according to the event's dominant characteristic changes; - creating opportunities to learn from previous experiences.
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