'I want to be the sort of owner that he wants me to be': Rationales for biosecurity implementation among British horse owners

Abstract

Background: Horse owners play a critical role in mitigating the risk of pathogen spread between horses. However, little is known about how they view biosecurity and whether they experience barriers to the uptake of preventive measures.

Objectives: To explore horse owners' attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of biosecurity and identify how these factors shape horse owners' decisions for biosecurity implementation.

Study design: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews.

Methods: Interviews were conducted with 23 horse owners across Great Britain. Participants were purposively selected to include those in different geographic regions, with different management arrangements, and varied length of horse ownership experience. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using a critical realist thematic analysis.

Results: Participants felt a moral obligation to prioritise their horse's happiness, which became a challenge when certain biosecurity measures (e.g., quarantine) were perceived as compromising their horse's happiness or comfort (Theme 1). A lack of biosecurity was the social norm among shared yards and competition venues (Theme 2), which made it difficult for participants to implement biosecurity measures effectively on their own. Combined with the sense of moral obligation participants felt towards their horse, this meant that participants had to 'care double' (i.e., be more vigilant than they would otherwise) to compensate for collective inaction (Theme 3).

Main limitations: Participants may have been more interested in and/or knowledgeable about biosecurity than the general horse owning population.

Conclusions: The findings highlight several challenges that could be addressed to improve biosecurity implementation among horse owners. Efforts to encourage improved uptake of biosecurity measures should focus on communicating how reducing the risk of disease aligns with horse care. Further research on social norms in the horse industry is needed, in addition to identifying strategies to encourage a collective adoption of biosecurity measures.

Keywords: biosecurity; equine infectious diseases; horse; qualitative research.