Fig 3.
Regions in Ontario identified by respondents as having leptospirosis activity (n = 122 datapoints from 40 respondents).
78 participants responded to the question. 40 participants selected at least one region, 38 were unsure and are not represented on this map. Base maps were reproduced under the Statistics Canada Open License and U.S. Census Bureau public domain [32–34].
Fig 1.
Employment location of study participants in Ontario.
The nine regions are based on employer Forward Sortation Area in Ontario (N = 101; eight participants were employed in a province outside of Ontario). Base maps were reproduced under the Statistics Canada Open License and U.S. Census Bureau public domain [32–34].
Table 1.
Employment organizations of public and animal health sector respondents and organizational level of these government and non-government agencies.a
Fig 2.
Self-assessed knowledge level of human and animal leptospirosis from health professionals in Ontario (N = 101).
Table 2.
Perceived health risk, impacts of concern, and surveillance adequacy for leptospirosis in Ontario.a, b
Table 3.
Summary of the described themes from the qualitative analysis of experts’ rationale for perceived leptospirosis health risk in Ontario. Themes and subthemes were derived from text-based survey responses in which experts justified their perception for or against leptospirosis as a health risk for humans, domestic animals, and wildlife in Ontario. The number of respondents who referenced each theme and/or subtheme are indicated for each population category and further categorized by the participant's perception of a health risk to that population (human, domestic animal, or wildlife). Responses may fall into more than one theme or subtheme, which may cause discrepancies between the sum of subtheme counts and the total listed for the main theme.
Table 4.
Key risk factors for leptospirosis in humans, companion animals, and livestock in Ontario, as identified by participants.a
Fig 4.
Expanded framework for the initial stages of developing an integrated surveillance program for zoonotic disease. We have identified five key subcomponents for the initial stakeholder recruitment and engagement stage of integrative surveillance development based upon the structural frameworks proposed by OHHLEP et al. [20] and Ghai et al. [23]. For each component, we have suggested questions to guide researchers to engage and recruit key agencies.