Making use of equine population demography for disease control purposes: preliminary observations on the difficulties of counting and locating horses in Great Britain.

The study attempts to use the UK’s National Equine Database (NED) to better predict the location of horses for effective control of equine diseases. Preliminary findings indicate that most horses are kept within 10 km of their owners’ addresses. Further research is needed to verify the accuracy of this method.

Understanding the UK’s National Equine Database

• In an effort to better control equine diseases, the study aims to accurately locate horse populations using the National Equine Database (NED).
• The NED holds important information about horse populations in the UK, and early examinations sought to understand what kind of data was held on the NED, including owner addresses.
• However, it was revealed that relatively fewer UK passport-issuing bodies requested details of where the horses were kept, in addition to the owner’s address.

The Proxy of Owner Addresses

• The researchers wanted to determine if the address of the horse owner could be a suitable proxy for predicting the location of the horse.
• To test this, data of 1440 horses from the Animal Health Trust syndromic surveillance database were examined.
• They found that 90% of the horses were kept within 10 km of their owner’s address, which suggests the owner’s location might be an effective indicator of where the horses are kept.

Future Implications

• This preliminary study suggests the feasibility of using owner’s addresses to predict the location of horse populations, but further work is necessary for affirmation.
• Once validated, NED could serve as a valuable epidemiological resource for future control measures of equine diseases.
• Further research will also gain more insight into the information that is being gathered by UK passport-issuing organizations and how it can be used effectively for disease controls.