Top‒down animal welfare crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: Animal care worker information sources, self-perceived knowledge and welfare concerns.

Abstract

Background: Experts communicating reliable and timely information are critical during public health crises. While assessments of human health crisis communication and preparedness have received attention, population animal welfare assessments are limited. This study assessed animal care worker (ACW) survey responses to identify factors potentially valuable for preparedness and intervention design for future crises that affect companion animals.

Methods: Our team took a subset of data from a US survey (conducted between July and October 2020) to investigate small animal veterinary (SAV; N = 1209) and animal shelter, rescue and control (SRC; N = 132) COVID-19 pandemic concerns pertinent to animal welfare, self-perceived knowledge of pandemic impacts, and update frequency and information sources.

Results: Compared with SAV workers, SRC workers more often reported frequent communication (p < 0.001), self-perceived expert knowledge (p = 0.012) and having welfare concerns (p = 0.012). The same was true for clinical SRC workers, more so than non-clinical SRC. Frequent updates correlated with greater self-perceived knowledge (p < 0.001). Information sources were primarily animal welfare focused for SRC workers and veterinary health focused for SAV.

Limitations: Community socioeconomic status and update contents are unknown. Furthermore, sample diversity was low, which may limit the generalisability of the findings.

Conclusion: There is a potential need for increased, more harmonised crisis communication from leading public and animal health entities to better support SAV and clinical SRC workers.