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ABSTRACT
A high degree of uncertainty exists for chronic wasting disease (CWD) transmission factors in farmed and wild cervids. Evaluating the factors is important as it helps to inform future risk management strategies. Expert opinion is often used to assist decision making in a number of health, science, and technology domains where data may be sparse or missing. Using the “Classical Model” of elicitation, a group of experts was asked to estimate the most likely values for several risk factors affecting CWD transmission. The formalized expert elicitation helped structure the issues and hence provide a rational basis for estimating some transmission risk factors for which evidence is lacking. Considered judgments regarding environmental transmission, latency of CWD transmission, management, and species barrier were provided by the experts. Uncertainties for many items were determined to be large, highlighting areas requiring more research. The elicited values may be used as surrogate values until research evidence becomes available.
Funding
This work was supported and funded by PrioNet Canada, a Network of Centres of Excellence program. The authors thank the following experts for their time, for sharing their knowledge, and for providing inputs during the elicitation exercise: Dr. Christina Sigurdson, Dr. Michael D. Samuel, Dr. Michael Miller, Dr. Katherine O’Rourke, Dr. Ermias Belay, Dr. Larry Schonberger, Dr. PierluigiGambetti, Dr. Claudio Soto, Dr. Robert Rohwer, Dr. Robert Will, Dr. Herbert Budka, Dr. Ted Leighton, Dr. Stefanie Czub, and Dr. Jean-Phillippe Deslys. W.A. acknowledges partial support from a European Council Advanced Research Grant (VOLDIES) to Professor RSJ Sparks, Bristol University.