Infectious disease epidemiology is the study of how diseases are spread and distributed within populations. In Bristol this research theme is embedded within the cross – faculty theme of Infection and Immunity (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/infection-immunity/) and has close links with both the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute  and Cabot Institute.

Areas of current interest are in developing molecular and sequencing technology to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of infections of farmed animals. Controlling infectious disease in farmed and domestic animals is important for several reasons: to maintain the health and welfare of the animals themselves, which can have economic, production and food security impacts, to prevent risk of disease in humans and to ensure that meat destined for human consumption is safe.

A current concern is the role that antimicrobial use in animals, particularly farmed livestock could have on the development of antimicrobial resistance in bacterial pathogens. It is currently unknown how veterinary prescribing of antimicrobials affects the development of resistance in diseases of animals or humans or in the environment.

Technology for undertaking whole genome sequence analysis of pathogens and for detecting specific pathogens rapidly (on farm) is progressing rapidly. The techniques for analyzing genetic data are equally applicable in animal and human medicine. A number of projects are aimed at improving our understanding of the epidemiology of infectious disease in animals and to improve veterinary infectious disease surveillance.

We use a variety of modelling approaches including ordinary differential equation, stochastic, individual based and spatial models which can be applied to research questions in infectious disease epidemiology. Such models are particularly helpful when used in conjunction with primary epidemiological research and data collection to understand disease systems and to predict the potential effect of interventions or to evaluate the impact of interventions when they are implemented e.g. reducing antimicrobial prescribing on farms or vaccinating calves against bovine respiratory virus.

Examples of current research projects
Infectious mastitis
Reducing antibiotic prescribing on dairy farms – PI Kristen Reyher