In July of this year, the 2019 International Society for Economics and Social Sciences of Animal Health (ISESSAH) annual conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia, in partnership with the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) annual meeting. In attendance from IGH were Jonathan Rushton (president of ISESSAH), Peregrine Rothman-Ostrow and Joao Afonso.

Peregrine gave a talk on a protocol for the calculation of tropical livestock units (TLUs) to account for species’ biomass variation, and Jonathan presented on behalf of Will Gilbert on vaccines for coccidiosis in intensive broiler systems. Joao presented a poster on the multitude of lameness detection and classification methods in British dairy cattle research. Lucy Coyne’s poster on antimicrobial use in livestock in three South East Asian countries and Will Gilbert’s poster on vaccine adoption in French cattle and poultry farming were also displayed. 

Opening remarks from the AAEA president elect, Keith Cobel highlighted the need to improve data access and data sharing, and emphasized the importance of developing researchers’ ability to adjust the communication of their work according to the audience, acknowledging that it is crucial if science is to have an impact. We look forward to attending the next ISESSAH annual meeting in Denmark next May 2020 which will be held in connection with the International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance.