Dear Colleagues,

Meat inspection at the slaughterhouse is recognised as a valuable tool for animal health surveillance and food safety. Several types of data are collected at slaughterhouses, including ante-mortem and post-mortem meat inspection findings, food chain information, and production data (such as carcass weights and quality), as well as drug residues, chemical contaminants, and pathogens. From the point of public health, the objective of collecting data in the slaughterhouse is to guarantee the safety of meat, and meat inspection represents an essential tool to control animal diseases and guarantee public health. However, these data can also be used for other purposes such as animal health surveillance, animal welfare, production monitoring, and the identification of drug-resistant organisms.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together examples of how slaughterhouse data can be used to advance the field of animal epidemiology. Original research that focuses on old and new approaches of making full use of these data are invited to submit to this Special Issue. Using slaughterhouse data has some limitations/bias, and research focusing on addressing or accounting for these biases is encouraged.

Dr. Carla Correia-Gomes
Dr. Natascha V. Meunier
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.