Ashley E. Hill, DVM, MPVM, PhD
Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
Department of Clinical Sciences
Health and Welfare of Livestock
In the broadest terms, my research seeks to improve health and welfare of livestock, including dairy and beef cattle, small ruminants, and equines. In dairy cattle, my research has focused on improving methods of detecting disease. This has included identifying conditions at slaughter that were undetected on farm; measuring the effects of preventive medicine herd health programs on measures of health, productivity, and medicine use; and developing indices for comparison of health, productivity, and medicine use among herds.
In small ruminants, my research has focused on describing the prevalence of endemic diseases and improving disease prevention by improving within-herd sampling strategies to ensure that vaccination programs appropriately target disease strains present within herds.
In equines, my research has focused on the relationship between subclinical and clinical musculoskeletal injuries in racehorses, on risk factors associated with development of subclinical injuries, and on factors that influence the progression of subclinical to clinical injuries.