1. Cage size, movement in and out of housing during daily care, and other environmental and population health risk factors for feline upper respiratory disease in nine North American animal shelters
- Author
-
Kate Hurley, Philip H. Kass, Denae Wagner, and Munderloh, Ulrike Gertrud
- Subjects
Pulmonology ,lcsh:Medicine ,Disease ,Pathology and Laboratory Medicine ,Cat Diseases ,0403 veterinary science ,Risk Factors ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,2.2 Factors relating to the physical environment ,Medicine ,Public and Occupational Health ,Aetiology ,lcsh:Science ,Lung ,Respiratory Tract Infections ,Mammals ,Fungal Pathogens ,Vaccines ,Multidisciplinary ,Transmission (medicine) ,Respiratory infection ,Eukaryota ,Homelessness ,04 agricultural and veterinary sciences ,General Medicine ,Vaccination and Immunization ,Bacterial Pathogens ,Infectious Diseases ,Medical Microbiology ,Vertebrates ,Pathogens ,Infection ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Research Article ,Infectious Disease Control ,040301 veterinary sciences ,General Science & Technology ,Upper respiratory disease ,Immunology ,Population health ,Mycology ,Microbiology ,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology ,Environmental health ,Animals ,Microbial Pathogens ,Animal Pathogens ,business.industry ,Prevention ,lcsh:R ,0402 animal and dairy science ,Organisms ,Biology and Life Sciences ,040201 dairy & animal science ,Amniotes ,Respiratory Infections ,North America ,Cats ,lcsh:Q ,Preventive Medicine ,business ,Cage size - Abstract
Upper respiratory infection (URI) is not an inevitable consequence of sheltering homeless cats. This study documents variation in risk of URI between nine North American shelters; determines whether this reflects variation in pathogen frequency on intake or differences in transmission and expression of disease; and identifies modifiable environmental and group health factors linked to risk for URI. This study demonstrated that although periodic introduction of pathogens into shelter populations may be inevitable, disease resulting from those pathogens is not. Housing and care of cats, particularly during their first week of stay in an animal shelter environment, significantly affects the rate of upper respiratory infection.
- Published
- 2018