title: Companion animals and human health: an overview.
abstract: Domestic animals share our environment in a variety of ways. One of these ways is as companions in and around our homes. Although a wide variety of species are kept in households for this purpose, the great majority are dogs and cats. Sharing our environment with such animals has a profound effect on the health of the humans concerned. As keeping companion animals is a very widespread activity, about 50% of all households in the Western world have some sort of animal, the effects are far reaching.
authors.forename: A T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Edney
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D001733:Bites and Stings; D002415:Cats; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D004285:Dogs; D006262:Health; D015438:Health Behavior; D001841:Human-Animal Bond; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D012919:Social Behavior; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000635:transmission