TY - JOUR
T1 - Social determinants of health and disease in companion dogs
T2 - A cohort study from the Dog Aging Project
AU - McCoy, Brianah M.
AU - Brassington, Layla
AU - Jin, Kelly
AU - Dolby, Greer A.
AU - Shrager, Sandi
AU - Collins, Devin
AU - Dunbar, Matthew
AU - Ruple, Audrey
AU - Snyder-Mackler, Noah
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Dog Aging Project participants, their dogs and community veterinarians for their important contributions. The Dog Aging Project is supported by grant U19-AG057377 from the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health, and by private donations. BMM is supported by a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Exposure to social environmental adversity is associated with health and survival across many social species, including humans. However, little is known about how these health and mortality effects vary across the lifespan and may be differentially impacted by various components of the environment. Here, we leveraged a relatively new and powerful model for human aging, the companion dog, to investigate which components of the social environment are associated with dog health and how these associations vary across the lifespan. We drew on comprehensive survey data collected on 21,410 dogs from the Dog Aging Project and identified five factors that together explained 33.7% of the variation in a dog's social environment. Factors capturing financial and household adversity were associated with poorer health and lower physical mobility in companion dogs, while factors that captured social support, such as living with other dogs, were associated with better health when controlling for dog age and weight. Notably, the effects of each environmental component were not equal: The effect of social support was 5× stronger than financial factors. The strength of these associations depended on the age of the dog, including a stronger relationship between the owner's age and the dog's health in younger as compared to older dogs. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of income, stability and owner's age on owner-reported health outcomes in companion dogs and point to potential behavioral and/or environmental modifiers that can be used to promote healthy aging across species.
AB - Exposure to social environmental adversity is associated with health and survival across many social species, including humans. However, little is known about how these health and mortality effects vary across the lifespan and may be differentially impacted by various components of the environment. Here, we leveraged a relatively new and powerful model for human aging, the companion dog, to investigate which components of the social environment are associated with dog health and how these associations vary across the lifespan. We drew on comprehensive survey data collected on 21,410 dogs from the Dog Aging Project and identified five factors that together explained 33.7% of the variation in a dog's social environment. Factors capturing financial and household adversity were associated with poorer health and lower physical mobility in companion dogs, while factors that captured social support, such as living with other dogs, were associated with better health when controlling for dog age and weight. Notably, the effects of each environmental component were not equal: The effect of social support was 5× stronger than financial factors. The strength of these associations depended on the age of the dog, including a stronger relationship between the owner's age and the dog's health in younger as compared to older dogs. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of income, stability and owner's age on owner-reported health outcomes in companion dogs and point to potential behavioral and/or environmental modifiers that can be used to promote healthy aging across species.
KW - aging
KW - companion dogs
KW - health and disease
KW - social determinants
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U2 - 10.1093/emph/eoad011
DO - 10.1093/emph/eoad011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85164460850
SN - 2050-6201
VL - 11
SP - 187
EP - 201
JO - Evolution, Medicine and Public Health
JF - Evolution, Medicine and Public Health
IS - 1
ER -