The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) marked its 40-year anniversary last year, 2014. One of the publications commissioned to celebrate that milestone is this new research report, Towards a Healthier Planet, written by Brian Perry, a distinguished former ILRI staff member who in 1987 initiated the Epidemiological and Socioeconomics Program at ILRI, or, to be precise, at ILRI’s predecessor, the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD). Perry is now a visiting professor at the University of Oxford and honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh.

For almost thirty years, the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) then ILRI benefited from a strong research program in the epidemiological sciences. Over time, it progressively broadened its coverage in disease, disciplinary and geographic terms. The results of this work have now been assembled in this impact narrative, which carefully documents the wide range of issues addressed by the…