Practical data skills for the farm animal vet

Hyde, Robert; Green, Martin; Hudson, Chris; Remnant, John

Abstract

Background: While farm animal veterinarians receive extensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of individual animals, population medicine or ‘herd health’ has also become commonplace in modern production animal veterinary medicine. Clinicians are increasingly using routinely collected farm data to identify epidemiological patterns in order to implement preventive health management changes on farm. As such, data handling and statistical analysis techniques are becoming more important in farm practice. While data handling and statistical techniques can initially be challenging to learn, a relatively small investment in time spent learning can dramatically reduce the time spent analysing farm outcomes, and provide a useful evidence base on which to base on-farm management decisions.

Aim of the article: This article provides a practical guide to data skills for the production animal vet, briefly covering basic descriptive statistics and graphical representations of data. It also includes further examples of more advanced data analysis techniques, such as statistical modelling and the use of coding language.

Citation

Hyde, R., Green, M., Hudson, C., & Remnant, J. (2021). Practical data skills for the farm animal vet. In Practice, 43(5), 257-268. https://doi.org/10.1002/inpr.53

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 4, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jun 4, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-06
• Deposit Date: Feb 7, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 5, 2022
• Journal: In Practice
• Print ISSN: 0263-841X
• Electronic ISSN: 2042-7689
• Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 257-268
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/inpr.53
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5789160
• Publisher URL: https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/inpr.53
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hyde, R., Green, M., Hudson, C. and Remnant, J. (2021), Practical data skills for the farm animal vet. In Practice, 43: 257-268. , which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/inpr.53. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.