A state-by-month panel dataset for realized-exposure evidence from the 2024 H5N1 HPAI outbreak, 2013–2026

In March 2024, H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) was detected in dairy cattle on farms in the Texas Panhandle — the first documented spread of this virus strain to bovine herds anywhere in the world (Burrough et al. 2024). Within months, confirmed infections had been reported in herds across 14 states, triggering federal emergency protocols and an extended period of epidemiological and economic uncertainty for the US dairy industry. Despite the policy significance of this outbreak, rigorous causal estimates of its effect on dairy productivity and farm structure were impeded by the absence of a systematically assembled, publicly available panel dataset linking HPAI exposure to routine state-level dairy statistics. This deposit fills that gap. The dataset was assembled to support a difference-in-differences (DiD) causal study examining whether state-level HPAI exposure — proxied by a pre-determined Herd Vulnerability Index (HVI) — is associated with subsequent changes in monthly milk production per cow and the number of dairy operations (Akinyemi 2026 In Preparation). The HVI is constructed from publicly available pre-outbreak data on geographic proximity to the outbreak epicenter and state dairy herd size, so it does not mechanically reflect post-shock outcomes. This design feature gives the HVI its identification value as a treatment variable in fixed-effects regression models.