The role of anticipation in enhancing prevention and preparedness

The goal of the International workshop on animal disposal alternatives (IWADA) has always been to minimise, to the greatest extent possible, the destruction of animals due to incursions of foreign animal disease. Prevention has always been considered the best mechanism to facilitate this goal. The authors introduce the concept of anticipation as a fifth pillar of emergency disease management in addition to the other pillars: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. The objectives are as follows: to broaden thinking on possible future adverse events and threats, including, but not limited to, disease outbreaks; to identify possible adverse event indicators; and, to enhance prevention and preparedness activities. The role of anticipation is to detect and analyse disease or animal health event indicators. These indicators can thus be used to anticipate possible adverse events in the future. Anticipation must be strongly linked to prevention and preparedness. The approaches to anticipation include surveillance activities, foresight and forecasting, networks and multi-disciplinary teams, framework approaches, computer-based and modelling approaches and intelligence approaches. Practitioners of anticipation will be required to accept uncertainty and incomplete data and must appreciate that although the future cannot be predicted, anticipation of plausible futures is valuable for strategic planning.