Between-country differences in the psychosocial profiles of British cattle farmers

Psychosocial factors are important for the uptake of livestock disease control measures by farmers and can differ by region, which would have implications for disease control nationally.

We investigated altruism, trust, psychological proximity and the COM-B behaviour change framework in a survey of 475 British cattle farmers in 2020. Using regression models, we studied associations between the country farmers lived in and psychosocial and behaviour change factors.

There were many between-country differences in farmers' psychosocial and COM-B profiles. Accounting for multiple tests, Scottish cattle farmers reported higher trust in governmental judgements for disease control and greater social opportunity to control disease than English cattle farmers.

There were relatively low numbers of respondents from Scotland and Wales. As such, the results should be interpreted with caution. Northern Irish farmers could not be included in the analyses as there were too few responses.

Cattle farmers differed in their psychosocial profiles by country. Our sample of Scottish farmers reported higher trust in, and felt better supported by, government in the context of disease control than the English farmers, which could be due to different disease control approaches between devolved governments. Understanding between-country differences in farmer psychosocial attributes has implications for animal health governance and approaches to disease control.