ArticleHealth psychology and behavioral medicine2021
Demographic and contextual factors as moderators of the relationship between pet ownership and health.
Article in Health psychology and behavioral medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations of current and life-course smoking and indoor environmental exposures with lung function level in early adulthood.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Pet Ownership is Associated with Durable Viral Suppression but Presents Healthcare Access Challenges for People with HIV.AIDS and behavior · 2026Article
- "She's loved me at all sizes": the role of the human-animal bond in eating disorder experiences and treatment.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- The protective role of companion animal ownership in cognitive aging: current status of the literature.GeroScience · 2026Review
- Bonded Green Exercise: A One Health Framework for Shared Nature-Based Physical Activity in the Human-Dog Dyad.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Article
- Perceived stress levels of pet and non-pet owners in Cebu, Philippines.Journal of advanced veterinary and animal research · 2026Article
- Article
- Cross-species conversations: the development of the AURAL-Pet coding system to capture how people talk to pets in daily life.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Factors of pet ownership associated with human health: A representative cross-sectional survey of Switzerland.PloS one · 2026Article
- Advancing pet care through technology: An evaluation of the LINE-based VET PROMPT notification system.Journal of advanced veterinary and animal research · 2025Article
- Beyond companionship: psycho-social benefits of pet ownership.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Short-term effects of pet acquisition and loss on well-being in an unbiased sample during the COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Profiles and predictors of access to human and veterinary healthcare in multispecies households.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Longitudinal relationships between pet ownership and cognitive functioning in later adulthood across pet types and individuals' ages.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Understanding Gender-Specific Daily Care Preferences: Topic Modeling Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Indoor allergen exposure in relation to sleep health among US adults.The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. Global · 2025Article
- A Survey of the Professional Characteristics and Views of Dog Trainers in Canada.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Similarities and differences between dog-human and human-human relationships.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Perception and utilisation of veterinary services by rodent owners in the United Kingdom.The Veterinary record · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveCompanion animals are an important feature of the family system, and human-animal interaction is increasingly being recognized as an important social determinant of health. However, there is a need for more nuanced assessment of not only who owns pets, but how pet ownership is related to various health outcomes, and which sociodemographic and contextual factors moderate these associations.
designSecondary analysis of cross-sectional data collected from an online, probability-based panel to generate a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States (
resultsResults suggested that pet owners are systematically different from non-pet owners on a number of key demographic and contextual characteristics, and these differences vary somewhat when looking at dog owners and cat owners. When controlling for individual and family-level covariates, pet ownership was not associated with overall health status or Body Mass Index, but dog ownership was associated with higher levels of physical activity. Pet ownership was associated with higher odds of having an anxiety disorder with gender moderating this relationship, but this association was not present for dog or cat owners, suggesting this relationship is limited to other types of pets. Higher odds of depression were associated with pet ownership (for both dog and cat owners), with employment status significantly moderating the relationship between dog ownership status and depression.
conclusionsThese findings suggest that pet ownership is a complex and context specific phenomenon. Future research should carefully consider and control for sociodemographic predictors and use measurement and analysis approaches sensitive to the variations in human-animal relationships to fully understand how pets contribute to individual and family health and well-being.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.