Animal health includes all aspects necessary to ensure the well-being of animals, including disease prevention and treatment, veterinary medicine, nutrition, proper handling and care, and more. Animal health is closely related to the broader concept of animal welfare, which is defined by the American Veterinary Medical Association as “how an animal is coping with the conditions in which it lives.” These fields cover the health of both pets kept for companionship as well as livestock and other farm animals.
The study of animal health is important--and challenging--in part because animals are limited in their ability to care for themselves and cannot directly express their needs verbally. Traditionally, animal health professionals had to rely largely on expert knowledge of animal behavior to diagnose illnesses, injuries, or other health issues. However, the ability to gather and analyze much more in-depth data on the health of animal populations as well as individual animals has provided valuable new tools in bioinformatics.
Regardless of the types of animals in question or the methods of diagnosis used, animal health is a growing part of the healthcare marketplace. Caring for the health of livestock and farm animals is particularly important, as outbreaks of diseases can have significant impact on public health and safety as well as consumer food prices.