Animal Welfare and Policy Risk Index (AWPRI): Constructing a Cross-National Exposure Measure of Animal Use and Governance Capacity, 24 Countries, 2010-2022

Jason Hung

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This research paper introduces the Animal Welfare and Policy Risk Index (AWPRI), a composite exposure index covering 24 countries over the period 2010-2022. The AWPRI is constructed from 12 variables organised across three conceptual layers, namely Animal-use exposure (L1), Governance capacity (L2), and AI amplification (L3). Each layer is the mean of its own variables and the composite is the mean of the three layers, so a variable sitting in the three-variable layer carries more weight than one sitting in the five-variable layer. Variables are min-max normalised within each year, so a country's value on any variable, layer, or composite suggests its position among the 24 countries that year. K-means clustering of the layer scores selects two groups (silhouette coefficient = 0.504 at k = 2, against 0.444 at k = 3 and 0.330 at k = 4). Principal component analysis (PCA) of the 12-variable 2022 cross-section requires five components to reach 90.8% of cumulative variance, showing that the index is not reducible to a single dimension. The construction passes 46 robustness checks, with the rank correlation against the index as built staying above 0.98 under z-score normalisation, pooled min-max bounds, layer reweighting, and leave-one-variable-out. China (0.703), Vietnam (0.663), and Thailand (0.612) record the highest composite scores in 2022; Sweden (0.316), Kenya (0.339), and Germany (0.362) the lowest. Tested against the World Animal Protection (WAP)'s Animal Protection Index, the composite returns a null (Spearman \r{ho} = -0.264, p = 0.213, n = 24) while L1 on its own tracks the WAP grade (\r{ho} = -0.485, p = 0.016). The AWPRI and its interactive visualisation are publicly accessible at https://awpri.aiinsocietyhub.com/.

Date: 2026-03, Revised 2026-08
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