Re-thinking public health: Towards a new scientific logic of routine animal health care in European industrial farming

The paper investigates how the social and institutional regime governing research and development on chronic animal disease management (CADM) in European industrial farming shapes a routine animal health care logic that prioritizes growth, profitability, and control. Against a backdrop of increasing public health crises (AMR and pandemics) and known links between industrialized animal production and pathogen emergence, the authors highlight a gap: the relationship between public health and chronic animal diseases—particularly the science and governance of CADM—remains under-explored. The study examines whether One Health can be reframed to see public health across species boundaries and to recognize chronic, often non-zoonotic, animal conditions as integral to public health. The central research question asks how current scientific logics and practices around CADM in Europe influence management priorities in broiler, cattle, and pig sectors, and how these might be reoriented toward a more-than-human, One Health-aligned public health.

The literature situates farmed animal health as historically central to European public health, especially for zoonotic and highly contagious diseases, while chronic, non-zoonotic conditions (e.g., cattle lameness, broiler enteritis) have largely been relegated to private sector concerns tied to productivity and profit. Chronic diseases, linked to intensive, high-density husbandry, are characterized by complex etiologies, low mortality, and often subclinical presentation, making scientific discourse pivotal to their routine management. Recent AMR concerns have brought routine treatment of chronic conditions back into One Health discussions, but critiques note a continued anthropocentrism: animal conditions are framed primarily as risks to humans or markets rather than subjects of care in their own right. Public health and One Health scholarship (e.g., Rock et al., Friese and Nuyts) calls for moving beyond human-centered logics toward more-than-human solidarity, acknowledging chronic animal diseases as sentinels of industrial subordination and potential contributors to pathogen emergence. The review underscores the dominance of productivist, market-driven agendas in shaping veterinary science and policy, and the risk that downgrading chronic animal health to private domains erodes care-focused practices and stifles innovation.

Design and approach: Inductive, constructivist grounded theory was used to analyze the discourse and practices of science related to CADM in Europe, focusing on broilers, cattle, and pigs and two common chronic disease types (digestive and respiratory). The study comprised two stages: a bibliometric/documentary analysis and qualitative interviews.

Bibliometric analysis: Two databases (Web of Science, Scopus) were searched for literature used in farmed animal health decision-making and planning in Europe. The search targeted common agents/names for selected chronic diseases (e.g., Eimeria spp., Clostridium perfringens in broilers; Mycoplasma bovis, Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus in cattle; PRRSV, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae in pigs) across fifteen leading European producer countries. Languages included English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Duplicates removed: 5,275; remaining references screened: 4,241; full texts read: 290; additional via reference tracking: 10; total included: 118 publications (1978–2017). Analysis combined descriptive and interpretative approaches to identify themes, visualize disease representation, and assess management options promoted.

Interviews: In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 practitioners engaged in CADM research or decision-making: 11 animal health scientists (AHS; 8 public, 3 private), 4 veterinary surgeons (VS), and 3 policy-makers (PM). Most were based in France but worked across Europe (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK). Sector coverage: broiler (n=9), cattle (n=9), with 8 having pig-sector experience. Interviews (typically ~90 minutes; some up to 150 minutes) explored research agendas, institutional contexts, funding, and routines of CADM. Ethical approval: University of Liverpool, Institute of Infection and Global Health Research Ethics Committee (Nov 2018). Data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed via iterative coding and thematic analysis, integrating insights from publications and interviews.

• CADM framed by industrial logic and market regimes: Across publications and interviews, CADM is predominantly oriented toward economic growth, productivity, and risk control rather than animal welfare or more-than-human public health. Only 7 authors (6%) in the bibliometric sample used the term “welfare” to frame their research, often subordinating it to “economic” concerns. Diseases with direct implications for human health (e.g., antibiotic use in bovine respiratory disease) or major economic impact (e.g., PRRS) received higher visibility and funding.
• Sectoral emphasis and private influence: Publications identified by sector were broilers (n=18), cattle (n=53), and pigs (n=47). Interviewees indicated broiler CADM research is strongly shaped by private/industrial interests, with rapid adoption of commercial therapeutic trends (e.g., microbiotics) preceding robust scientific understanding.
• Manufacturing and compartmentalization of CADM science: Research practices are compartmentalized (e.g., vaccination, genetics, nutrition), highly technical, and mechanistic, privileging visible, quantifiable targets and rapid, standardized interventions. Analytical approaches (e.g., statistical/molecular methods) transform invisible chronic processes into tangible metrics, frequently culminating in advocacy for pharmaceutical solutions; 81% of publications promoted options such as drugs and vaccines.
• Structural constraints, ethical tensions, and corporatism: Practitioners reported ethical commitments to animal health but described constraints from funding systems, peer review, and institutional pressures aligned with food/pharma industries. Tensions surfaced around antibiotic reduction policies, perceived as conflicting with immediate animal care, and around corporatist dynamics within AHS/VS/PM communities, including influence from pharmaceutical companies in education and research contracts (e.g., restrictions on publishing unfavorable results).
• Public invisibility and stifled innovation: The relative invisibility of chronic, non-zoonotic diseases to public health agendas positions CADM as technical support for industrial production, limiting holistic, upstream interventions in husbandry systems and sustaining conditions that may enable pathogen adaptation and emergence.

Findings demonstrate that the social organization of CADM research in Europe aligns with neoliberal, productivist rationalities, positioning routine animal health care as a technical, economically driven function within industrial farming. This narrows the scope of scientific inquiry to compartmentalized, measurable targets and promotes pharmaceutical interventions, suppressing systemic, care-oriented innovations that address the origins of chronic conditions. Such logics contribute to public health risks (e.g., AMR, influenza outbreaks) by fostering pathogen resilience in high-density, intensive systems. The entrenched ties among academia, veterinary practice, and food/pharma industries create a formal order of CADM research akin to industrial production processes, privileging “useful” knowledge for market imperatives. Addressing the research question, the study shows that prevailing scientific practices and incentives shape CADM toward growth and control rather than more-than-human care, undermining One Health’s potential. A reorientation is argued for: collaborative, holistic approaches that recognize chronic animal health as integral to public health and emphasize ethical responsibilities and interspecies solidarity.

The study advances two main contributions: (1) It brings chronic, non-zoonotic animal diseases into focus as critical to One Health and public health, arguing they merit attention comparable to zoonoses for preventing pathogen emergence; (2) It expands One Health’s conceptualization to include chronic animal health conditions as part of a more-than-human public health framework. Empirically, it shows that CADM science is shaped by capitalist, productivist agendas that stifle innovation and prioritize economic outputs over animal well-being. The authors call for a paradigm shift: valuing routine animal health and chronic conditions as “voices” in public health knowledge, fostering dialogue across disciplines and stakeholders, and developing care-oriented, holistic strategies from within agricultural systems to build resilience to future disease outbreaks.