A review of horse welfare literature from 1980 to 2023 with a text mining and topic analysis approach

Abstract

Animal welfare protection is a challenge for which policy-makers are demanding scientific-based evidence. Considering horses, the challenge is even greater, as their role in society varies from production to companion animals. This review aimed to describe the evolution and geographical distribution of horse welfare literature over the years, to identify the most studied research topics and to highlight the still present gaps in knowledge. A search on Scopus^® bibliometric database was performed using different welfare-related keywords. Predetermined filters were posed on time range, language and subject area. A total of 6584 records were downloaded and screened retaining only the ones dealing with horse welfare and behavioural sciences. Descriptive statistics, text mining (TM) and topic analysis (TA) were performed on the abstract of 801 eligible records. The results showed the number of studies on horse welfare is exponentially increasing, especially in the European continent. ‘Transport’ was the most frequent word, but also ‘behaviour’ and ‘pain’ emerged. Nine topics were identified and covered different subject areas: stress analysis, pain assessment, equitation science, human–horse interactions, breeding management, transport, working equids and health. The evaluation of stress and pain, horse social behaviour and the human–horse relationship resulted to be the most studied aspects related to animal welfare. On the contrary, the concept of positive welfare and the welfare assessment at slaughter of horses were underrepresented, confirming the limited literature on these subjects. This review confirmed the growing impact of research on horse welfare and highlighted how some important areas still do not provide sufficient scientific evidence.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Analysis of the literature related to horse welfare was performed using text analysis techniques to identify trends in words and research topics.

• Results showed that the literature on horse welfare has exponentially grown in the last 43 years, especially in Europe.

• The most studied topics were stress and pain, while studies on the welfare at slaughter and positive welfare indicators were scant.

Keywords:

• Machine learning
• well-being
• stress
• pain
• positive indicators

Acknowledgements

The article was written within the framework of the programmatic initiatives of the ASPA Commission for Animal behaviour and Welfare and the authors are thankful to Dr. Barbara Cortiero who taught these machine-learning techniques to the members of the commission.

Author contributions

Conceptualisation: Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici, Leonardo Nanni Costa and Barbara Padalino; Methodology: Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici and Barbara Padalino; Formal Analysis: Beatrice Benedetti and Martina Felici; Investigation: Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici, Leonardo Nanni Costa and Barbara Padalino; Data Curation: Beatrice Benedetti and Martina Felici; Writing Original Draft Preparation: Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici and Barbara Padalino; Writing Review and Editing: Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici, Leonardo Nanni Costa and Barbara Padalino; Supervision: Leonardo Nanni Costa and Barbara Padalino; Project Administration: Barbara Padalino.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this review are available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.