Applying game theory to livestock disease control, Dr Louise Matthews (The Boyd Orr Centre for Population and Ecosystem Health; Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine; University of Glasgow)
Abstract
Game theory is the mathematical field which addresses strategic decision making. Since its development by John Nash, it has been widely used in economics but also to understand issues as diverse as international conflict and arms races, pollution and overuse of natural resources, climate change, and human vaccine choices. It has been little used so far in the veterinary world and in this talk I will explain how game theory may be used to consider farmer uptake of livestock disease controls.
New diagnostic tests and control measures are typically developed without an assessment of whether they are likely to be taken up by the farming community. An example of current importance is the potential uptake of a new diagnostic test for sheep scab – a costly and highly contagious disease of sheep. To tackle this question, I introduce and make use of stochastic games which are useful for capturing different risk states inherent in epidemiological problems. I show that uptake of the test is likely given expected tests costs and that uptake at a national scale could reduce the incidence of the disease by over 50%.
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