日本と世界各地域の獣医疫学教育の現状

抄録

In recent years, outbreaks of animal infectious and zoonotic diseases have occurred frequently, and the importance of epidemiology, animal health economics, and One Health has been recognized. Furthermore, with the digitalization of society and the emergence of artificial intelligence, the need for quantitative evidence is expanding to every corner of society. In order for epidemiology to be implemented in society as the response, it is essential to improve the educational system.

From December 2023 to February 2024, to understand the current state of epidemiological education at the undergraduate level at Japanese veterinary schools and to form a network of veterinary epidemiologists in these universities, the Epidemiology Section of the Japanese Society of Veterinary Sciences conducted a questionnaire survey at all 17 universities across Japan. In addition, in 2023, an email-based survey on undergraduate education was conducted with the epidemiologists from a total of 10 veterinary schools: one in North America, one in South America, two in Southeast Asia, one in Australia, one in sub-Saharan Africa, and four in Europe. The information was compiled and examined.

Of the 17 veterinary schools in Japan, 11 are public universities, and 8 of these were conducting joint epidemiology education with 2 schools each (4 pairs). Therefore, a total of 13 educational courses including all 17 universities responded, and the response rate was 100%. Twelve out of 13 courses (92.3%) offered independent epidemiology lectures, and all schools offered epidemiology lectures. The average number of faculty members teaching epidemiology per university was 2.1, with a median of 1 and a maximum of 7. The mean and median numbers of epidemiology lectures in a course was 13.2 and 14, with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 15. Only 58.8% (10/17) of the 17 universities were conducting practical training and exercises related to veterinary epidemiology. Of the 5 educational courses including 7 universities that do not incorporate practical training, all of them cited lack of time in their curriculum as the reason, 2 universities (1 response) said they did not have enough teachers, and 1 university did not have enough computers. Three of them (2 responses) described that they would like to incorporate practical training if there was a useful practical textbook in an open question.

On the other hand, all 10 overseas universities offer epidemiology training/seminar courses, and of these, 9 schools offer the course as a practical course, with the exception of one university on the African continent where it is held as part of a lecture course. Practical subjects teaching epidemiology varied, including epidemiology training and clinical subjects, with some universities used the data provided from the government and others delving into infectious disease mathematical model simulations and genomic phylogenetic tree analysis.