3.2 Respondent’s characteristics
The most represented age group was 41-50 years old with 82 respondents, followed by 51-60 (53 counts), 31-40 (51 counts), over 60 (14 counts) and the lowest group 20-30 (13 counts). The years of work experience ranged from 1 year to 40 with the majority of the respondents (38%) having between 11 and 20 years’ experience.
The number of respondents, who were carrying out their professional activities in a single country was 145 (13 of which did not specify which country) represented by 66 different countries. The countries were Belgium, France and Ireland with 18, 10 and 6 counts respectively. Ecuador, Niger, Tunisia, Vietnam at 5 counts each; Algeria with 4 counts; Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland 3 counts each; Estonia, Greece, Israel, Kenya, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, and Spain 2 counts each. The rest of the indicated countries had one count each: Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Benin, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Eswatini, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Libya, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Serbia, Slovakia, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and Zambia (Figure 1) .
A total of 68 professionals were working in several countries (i.e. at international level) of which 30 worked both in European and non-European countries, 20 in European countries only and 18 in non- European countries only.
For type of employment, field of competency and responsibilities regarding animal disease threats, the number of responses varied. Each respondent could answer more than one option, therefore the number of answers were higher than the number of respondents. Regarding the type of employment (total number of responses N = 272), respondents were mainly employed in government institutions (112/272), followed by research institutions (65/272), universities (52/272), international organizations (16/272), private companies (9/272), as sector representatives (5/272) and lastly as animal producers with 3/272. There were 12/272 respondents which marked the option “other”. They further specified that they were employed as private veterinarians (6/274), in consultancy companies (2/272), different non-governmental associations (3/272) and 1/272 was a retired professional. The most common fields of competency (total number of responses N= 433) were animal health and public health with 191/433 and 92/433 respondents, respectively. Food safety had 62/433, animal welfare 55/433, environment 15/433 and plant health 5/433. There were 16 respondents for the option “other” where 5 further specified animal husbandry, 3 animal conservation and economics, parasitology, epidemiology, global health, insect pest control, microbiology veterinary epidemiology and wildlife health, each had 1 count. As for their responsibilities regarding animal disease threats, many respondents answered with more than one option (total number of responses N = 554) with risk assessment (134/554) and signal capture (102/554) having the highest counts. Risk communication followed with 85/557 counts, risk management with 77/554, policy making with (66/554) and decision making with 61/554. There were 32 counts for the option “other” where on specification research and funding (9/32) and surveillance and control (8/32) had the highest counts. Other respondents’ specifications were not clear in their meaning – these were not analysed any further.
Three univariate Poisson models (one per question on: type of employment, field of competency and responsibilities related to animal disease threats) were made to observe any differences in frequency of use (outcome variable for all 3). The following types of employment were not included in the analysis due to low counts (i.e. less than 17 counts): animal producer, sector representative, private company (e.g. pharmaceutical company, animal nutrition company). Using the category “university” as the reference, the two types of employment that were significantly higher in use than university in decreasing order were international organization (e.g. FAO, OIE, NGO) and government institutions. Type of employment in a research/scientific institution was not significant; hence, the frequency of use of animal information systems is the same as for university.
Three fields were excluded (environment, plant health and other) from the Poisson model for the field of competency, for the same reason mentioned above in type of employment. Remaining categories were not significant. The same result was obtained for the question, “what is (are) your responsibility(ies)” related to animal disease threat, none were significant.
Experts mentioned that the key words which best described their areas of expertise were: epidemiology (59 times); animal health (43 times); zoonoses (20 times); surveillance (16 times); food safety (15 times); microbiology (12 times); animal husbandry (11 times); animal welfare (9 times); veterinary and veterinary epidemiology (8 times each); biosecurity (7 times); and contingency planning and virology (7 times each) (Figure 2 ).