Animal Health Economics is a discipline that aims to provide a framework of concept, procedures and data to support the decision - making process in optimising animal health management. Research in Animal Health Economics deals with quantifying the financial effects of animal disease, developing methods for optimizing decisions when individual animals, herds or populations are affected and determining the costs and benefits of disease control. Key achievement of this discipline is the establishment of epidemiological and economic techniques as offering a distinctive and successful method of investigating and resolving animal health problems. Economic analysis compares the cost of tolerating a disease with the cost of controlling it and allowing animal health improvement strategies to be planned in such a way as to obtain maximum benefit from available resources. This article attempts to give an overview on this new emerging discipline.
