RT Dissertation/Thesis
T1 Behavioral economic impact on animal health surveillance system in Thailand
A1 Kewprasopsak,Tossapond
WP 2021/04/07
AB Zoonotic diseases are a continuously significant threat to global human and livestock health (causing millions of deaths yearly). Zoonotic diseases are not only a human health threat, but also a threat to animal health and welfare. Moreover, they have a high impact on national economies and food security due to productivity and production reduction. Expanding worldwide travel and global trade increases the importance of the threat of zoonotic diseases. The increase in global meat consumption contrasts with the escalating instability of the global meat market, which is affected by the increase of livestock densities, changes in production intensity, and slaughtering systems, causing animal disease outbreaks to spread widely. This study focuses on the animal disease surveillance system in Thailand as an important world meat exporter. In 2014, the Participatory One Health Disease Detection project, or PODD was set up by the veterinary inspection authorities to test animal epidemic control systems using smartphone applications in the Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand 
The main objectives of this study are (i) to evaluate the economic impact of the PODD system on farmers by impact assessment (n = 177) (ii) to demonstrate the impact of monetary and non-monetary incentives on the PODD reporters by the experimental approach (n = 17), (iii) and to present the effect of the socioeconomic factors and behavioral bias on farmers animal disease reporting behavior with the logit model (n = 467).
Focusing on the first objective, the results of this study concluded that there is an impact on the farmers. The technology alone cannot improve animal health security in the short-term. In the second objective, the results concluded that, in the case of the PODD reporters, the decision of using monetary incentives to motivate most of the PODD reporters has a negative impact in the long-term. Losing reporter motivation and effort reflected to the low efficiency of the digital surveillance system of PODD and no impact on farmers. Concerning In the last objective, the results concluded that the optimistic bias of farmers has a very high impact on their decision making about reporting animal diseases on their farm. Just one infected farm in the case of dairy milk farmers can spread the foot-and-mouth disease to other farms. The new digital animal health surveillance system alone is not enough to reduce the impact of animal diseases of farmers. Suitable motivation for the reports and awareness of farmers optimistic bias in animal disease reporting cannot be neglected in digital animal disease surveillance system improvement.
Overall, it can be concluded that the digital animal disease surveillance system is a powerful instrument for reducing the impact of animal diseases and increasing food safety and security. However, application of this advanced technology still needs time to demonstrate the impact and to be broadly adopted by users. In terms of motivation, the monetary incentive can increase the effort of report in the short run but it comes at a high cost and has a negative impact in the long-term. While the social incentive costs less and is more effective in the long-term. Where farmers’ animal disease reporting behavior is concerned, the optimistic bias is the highest influential factor on the farmers reporting decisions, in an inverse correlation.

K1 Verhaltensökonomie
K1 Tiergesundheit
K1 Monitoring
PP Hohenheim
PB Kommunikations-, Informations- und Medienzentrum der Universität Hohenheim
UL http://opus.uni-hohenheim.de/volltexte/2021/1868