Development, application, and validation of a survey for infectious disease control practices at equine boarding facilities.

The study centred on devising a self-assessment tool to gauge biosecurity measures at horse-boarding facilities, using Colorado-based facilities for evaluation. The findings pointed towards the need for improved infectious disease prevention/control measures at many facilities. The self-assessment proved fairly accurate when compared to the research team’s inspection findings.

Research Design and Methodology

• The researchers crafted a survey and assigned point values to each question based on their relevance to infectious disease prevention and containment.
• The points ranged from 0 to 20, higher values indicating optimal infection control procedures.
• These questionnaires were then distributed through mail to horse-boarding facilities throughout Colorado discovered through internet advertising.
• To evaluate the reliability of the responses, the research team did onsite inspections at 30 randomly chosen facilities out of all those which responded.
• The agreement between the assessment results by the survey respondents and the evaluation by the research member was determined using a kappa test. Rating for correlation ranged from poor to nearly perfect.

Results Analysis

• Around 39% or 64 out of 163 facilities responded to the survey with their total score ranging from 106 to 402 against a maximum possible score of 418.
• It was seen that facilities scored better in controlling and housing horse movements, contrary to the other segments of the survey.
• Half of the facilities that often received new horses reported to isolate these new arrivals – a significant biosecurity measure.
• The comparative analysis between the self-assessment by the survey respondents and the evaluation by the research team, showed a fair to substantial correlation.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• The study concluded that most horse-boarding facilities need to improve efforts for preventing and containing infectious diseases. Such improvements may include regular isolation of newly arrived horses and the use of documented health management protocols.
• Despite the need for enhancement, most of the facilities’ self-assessment of infection control practices were found quite accurate, signifying the efficacy of the developed self-assessment tool.