Pastoralists’ awareness of infectious disease outbreaks depends on their socioeconomic characteristics and considerably affects their land use strategies. This study aimed to identify the factors that affect transhumant communities’ awareness of recently emerged Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans and foot and mouth disease (FMD) in animals. This study also investigated the key factors that govern the adoption of alternative land use strategies by nonmigrating transhumants to avoid seasonal migration in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region of Pakistan. To link the awareness of disease spread to the adoption of alternative land use strategies, a focus group discussion and a socioeconomic survey were conducted in the study area. A total of 300 households were randomly selected from a nonmigrating transhumant community. The results of the binary logit model showed that landholding size, good relationships with extension field staff, and extension contact were positively related, whereas household education was negatively related to pastoralists’ awareness of infectious disease outbreaks. In the case of adopting alternative strategies to avoid future long-distance migration, our model showed that pastoralists’ awareness of infectious disease outbreaks significantly and positively affected pastoralists’ adoption of these strategies. The other variables that were positively associated with the pastoralists’ adoption of these strategies included good relationships with extension field staff, household size and primary dependence on pastoral-based livelihood, whereas the education level of the head of the household, lack of financial resources and disputes over agricultural lands/forests were negatively associated with the pastoralists’ adoption of these strategies. We conclude that to avoid infectious disease spread and promote adoption of alternative strategies, the government should pay attention to creating awareness among transhumant communities. Communicating the latest scientific research on infectious disease outbreaks and effective control measures that are translated in an understandable (pictographic) manner could be an effective policy intervention.

牧民对传染病爆发的认识取决于他们的社会经济特征，并在很大程度上影响他们的土地使用策略。本研究旨在确定影响跨人类社区对最近出现的人类冠状病毒病 2019 (COVID-19) 和动物口蹄疫 (FMD) 认识的因素。本研究还调查了控制非迁移迁移者采用替代土地利用策略以避免巴基斯坦兴都库什喜马拉雅 (HKH) 地区季节性迁移的关键因素。为了将疾病传播的意识与替代土地利用策略的采用联系起来，在研究区域进行了焦点小组讨论和社会经济调查。从一个非迁移的跨人类社区中随机选择了 300 户家庭。二元logit模型的结果表明，土地持有规模、与推广现场工作人员的良好关系、推广接触呈正相关，而家庭教育与牧民对传染病爆发的认识呈负相关。在采用替代策略以避免未来长距离迁移的情况下，我们的模型表明，牧民对传染病爆发的认识显着且积极地影响了牧民对这些策略的采用。与牧民采用这些策略呈正相关的其他变量包括与外勤人员的良好关系、家庭规模和对牧民生计的主要依赖，而户主的教育水平、缺乏财政资源和农业土地/森林纠纷与牧民采用这些策略呈负相关。我们得出的结论是，为了避免传染病传播并促进采用替代策略，政府应注意提高跨人类社区的意识。以易于理解的（象形）方式传播有关传染病暴发的最新科学研究和有效控制措施可能是一种有效的政策干预。