IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0179494.html

Exploring the differences between pet and non-pet owners: Implications for human-animal interaction research and policy

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Saunders
  • Layla Parast
  • Susan H Babey
  • Jeremy V Miles

Abstract

There is conflicting evidence about whether living with pets results in better mental and physical health outcomes, with the majority of the empirical research evidence being inconclusive due to methodological limitations. We briefly review the research evidence, including the hypothesized mechanisms through which pet ownership may influence health outcomes. This study examines how pet and non-pet owners differ across a variety of socio-demographic and health measures, which has implications for the proper interpretation of a large number of correlational studies that attempt to draw causal attributions. We use a large, population-based survey from California administered in 2003 (n = 42,044) and find that pet owners and non-pet owners differ across many traits, including gender, age, race/ethnicity, living arrangements, and income. We include a discussion about how the factors associated with the selection into the pet ownership group are related to a range of mental and physical health outcomes. Finally, we provide guidance on how to properly model the effects of pet ownership on health to accurately estimate this relationship in the general population.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Saunders & Layla Parast & Susan H Babey & Jeremy V Miles, 2017. "Exploring the differences between pet and non-pet owners: Implications for human-animal interaction research and policy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0179494
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179494
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179494
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179494&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0179494?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cutt, H. & Giles-Corti, B. & Knuiman, M. & Timperio, A. & Bull, F., 2008. "Understanding dog owners' increased levels of physical activity: Results from RESIDE," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(1), pages 66-69.
    2. Chang, Y.-F. & McMahon, J.E. & Hennon, D.L. & LaPorte, R.E. & Coben, J.H., 1997. "Dog bite incidence in the city of pittsburgh: A capture-recapture approach," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(10), pages 1703-1705.
    3. Bruce Headey & Markus Grabka, 2007. "Pets and Human Health in Germany and Australia: National Longitudinal Results," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 297-311, January.
    4. Lee, S. & Brown, E.R. & Grant, D. & Belin, T.R. & Brick, J.M., 2009. "Exploring nonresponse bias in a health survey using neighborhood characteristics," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(10), pages 1811-1817.
    5. Shadish, William R. & Clark, M. H. & Steiner, Peter M., 2008. "Can Nonrandomized Experiments Yield Accurate Answers? A Randomized Experiment Comparing Random and Nonrandom Assignments," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1334-1344.
    6. Bruce Headey, 1999. "Health Benefits and Health Cost Savings Due to Pets: Preliminary Estimates from an Australian National Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 233-243, June.
    7. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    8. Whitney K. Newey & James L. Powell, 2003. "Instrumental Variable Estimation of Nonparametric Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1565-1578, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matsumura, Kenta & Hamazaki, Kei & Tsuchida, Akiko & Inadera, Hidekuni, 2022. "Pet ownership during pregnancy and mothers' mental health conditions up to 1 year postpartum: A nationwide birth cohort—the Japan Environment and Children's Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    2. Morgan M. Wright & Pamela Schreiner & B. R. Simon Rosser & Elizabeth J. Polter & Darryl Mitteldorf & William West & Michael W. Ross, 2019. "The Influence of Companion Animals on Quality of Life of Gay and Bisexual Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-8, November.
    3. Tzu-Lin Yeh & Wei-Te Lei & Shu-Jung Liu & Kuo-Liong Chien, 2019. "A modest protective association between pet ownership and cardiovascular diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Paul W.C. Wong & Rose W.M. Yu & Joe T.K. Ngai, 2019. "Companion Animal Ownership and Human Well-Being in a Metropolis—The Case of Hong Kong," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Emily Shoesmith & Lion Shahab & Dimitra Kale & Daniel S. Mills & Catherine Reeve & Paul Toner & Luciana Santos de Assis & Elena Ratschen, 2021. "The Influence of Human–Animal Interactions on Mental and Physical Health during the First COVID-19 Lockdown Phase in the U.K.: A Qualitative Exploration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Paul A.M. Overgaauw & Claudia M. Vinke & Marjan A.E. van Hagen & Len J.A. Lipman, 2020. "A One Health Perspective on the Human–Companion Animal Relationship with Emphasis on Zoonotic Aspects," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-29, May.
    7. Joanne Reddekopp & Colleen Anne Dell & Betty Rohr & Barbara Fornssler & Maryellen Gibson & Ben Carey & James Stempien, 2020. "Patient Opinion of Visiting Therapy Dogs in a Hospital Emergency Department," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-10, April.
    8. Kyung-Duk Min & Woo-Hyun Kim & Seongbeom Cho & Sung-il Cho, 2019. "Owners’ Attitudes toward Their Companion Dogs Are Associated with the Owners’ Depression Symptoms—An Exploratory Study in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-12, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul W.C. Wong & Rose W.M. Yu & Joe T.K. Ngai, 2019. "Companion Animal Ownership and Human Well-Being in a Metropolis—The Case of Hong Kong," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-14, May.
    2. Mieke Rijken & Sandra Beek, 2011. "About Cats and Dogs … Reconsidering the Relationship Between Pet Ownership and Health Related Outcomes in Community-Dwelling Elderly," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 373-388, July.
    3. Yasemin Kisbu-Sakarya & Thomas D. Cook & Yang Tang & M. H. Clark, 2018. "Comparative Regression Discontinuity: A Stress Test With Small Samples," Evaluation Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 111-143, February.
    4. Victor Chernozhukov & Whitney K. Newey & Andres Santos, 2023. "Constrained Conditional Moment Restriction Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 709-736, March.
    5. Rebecca Utz, 2014. "Walking the Dog: The Effect of Pet Ownership on Human Health and Health Behaviors," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 327-339, April.
    6. Yu, Ping & Phillips, Peter C.B., 2018. "Threshold regression with endogeneity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 50-68.
    7. Ferran Marsa-Sambola & Janine Muldoon & Joanne Williams & Alistair Lawrence & Melanie Connor & Candace Currie, 2016. "The Short Attachment to Pets Scale (SAPS) for Children and Young People: Development, Psychometric Qualities and Demographic and Health Associations," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 9(1), pages 111-131, March.
    8. Bruce Headey & Fu Na & Richard Zheng, 2008. "Pet Dogs Benefit Owners’ Health: A ‘Natural Experiment’ in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 481-493, July.
    9. Davezies, Laurent & Le Barbanchon, Thomas, 2017. "Regression discontinuity design with continuous measurement error in the running variable," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 200(2), pages 260-281.
    10. Svenja Damberg & Lena Frömbling, 2022. "“Furry tales”: pet ownership’s influence on subjective well-being during Covid-19 times," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3645-3664, October.
    11. Diegmann, André & Pohlan, Laura & Weber, Andrea, 2024. "Do Politicians Affect Firm Outcomes? Evidence from Connections to the German Federal Parliament," IZA Discussion Papers 17031, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Paula López-Villalba & Christian Ruzzier, 2026. "Ideology and Corruption," Working Papers 178, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Mar 2026.
    13. Ai, Chunrong & Chen, Xiaohong, 2007. "Estimation of possibly misspecified semiparametric conditional moment restriction models with different conditioning variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 5-43, November.
    14. Ivan A Canay & Vishal Kamat, 2018. "Approximate Permutation Tests and Induced Order Statistics in the Regression Discontinuity Design," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1577-1608.
    15. Arteaga, Irma & Heflin, Colleen & Gable, Sara, 2016. "The impact of aging out of WIC on food security in households with children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 82-96.
    16. Frederik von Waldow & Heike Link, 2024. "Spatial Competition and Pass-through of Fuel Taxes: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2086, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Giancarlo Buitrago & Javier Amaya-Nieto & Grant Miller & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2023. "Cost-Sharing in Medical Care Can Increase Adult Mortality: Evidence from Colombia," NBER Working Papers 31908, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Dahlberg, Matz & Mörk, Eva & Rattsø, Jørn & Ågren, Hanna, 2008. "Using a discontinuous grant rule to identify the effect of grants on local taxes and spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(12), pages 2320-2335, December.
    19. Atı̇la Abdulkadı̇roğlu & Joshua D. Angrist & Yusuke Narita & Parag Pathak, 2022. "Breaking Ties: Regression Discontinuity Design Meets Market Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 117-151, January.
    20. Ceren Ertan Yörük & Barış Yörük, 2015. "Alcohol consumption and risky sexual behavior among young adults: evidence from minimum legal drinking age laws," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 133-157, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0179494. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.