Pets Don't Improve Children's Mental Or Physical Health, Study Says

SANTA MONICA, CA – Owning a pet doesn't improve the mental or physical health of children, according to a report released Monday by Santa Monica-based think tank Rand Corporation. The study explored the notion that pets can improve children's health through an increase in physical activity and improving empathy skills.

Unlike other smaller studies done on the same topic, Rand used advanced statistical tools to control for various other factors that could contribute to a child's well-being other than owning a pet, such as belonging to a family with a higher income or living in a more affluent setting.

"We could not find evidence that children from families with dogs or cats are better off either in terms of their mental well-being or their physical health," said Layla Parast, a co-author of the study and a statistician at Rand. "Everyone on the research team was surprised – we all have or grew up with dogs and cats. We had essentially assumed from our own personal experiences that there was a connection."

RELATED: Fido And Fluffy Are Ruining The Environment, UCLA Study Says

The study, which was published online by the journal Anthrozoos, analyzed information from more than 2,200 children who lived in pet-owning households in California and compared them to about 3,000 households without a pet. The information was collected as a part of the 2003 California Health Interview Survey, an annual survey that for one year also asked participants about whether they had pets, along with an array of other health questions.

Researchers did find that children in pet-owning families tended to have better general health, have slightly higher weight and were more likely to be physically active compared to children whose families did not have pets. Children with pets were also more likely to have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, were more likely to be obedient and were less likely to have parents concerned about their child's feelings, mood, behavior and learning ability.

But when researchers adjusted the findings to account for other variables that might be associated with both the likelihood that a family has a pet and the child's health, the association between pet ownership and better health disappeared.

Overall, researchers considered more than 100 variables in adjusting their model of pet ownership and health, including family income, language skills and type of family housing.

While many previous studies have suggested a link between pet ownership and better emotional and physical health, Rand researchers say their analysis has more credibility because it analyzed a larger sample than previous efforts.

Researchers say future research could examine associations involving pet ownership over longer periods of time and in more experimental settings.

This may be a good thing, because according to a recent UCLA study, your pets are contributing to global warming – pet ownership in the United States creates about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

City News Service and Patch Editor Emily Holland contributed to this post

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