Human health concerns from pet ownership after a tornado.
BACKGROUND
Although 50% to 60% of North American households own pets and many of these pets are considered family members, there is little information on the impact of pet ownership on pet-owning families affected by disasters.


METHODS
This case report describes some of the effects of a tornado on 17 families whose dwellings were destroyed. The setting was a typical urban trailer park.


RESULTS
After a tornado at the Sagamore Village Trailer Park in north central Indiana, 104 families were evacuated. Seventeen (16.3%) of these families owned pets. For 14 families (13.5%), pet ownership had an important impact on the families' recovery from the tornado. Public- and mental-health concerns that arose from pet ownership included failure to evacuate a dangerous site, attempts to re-enter a dangerous site, separation anxiety leading to psychosomatic disturbances, and the need for additional animal care.


CONCLUSIONS
In urban disasters, the behaviors of families with a human-animal bond are likely to pose a significant risk to their own and others' health and safety in urban disasters. In this small study of families affected by a tornado, the most prominent public-health concerns were failure to evacuate because of a pet and attempts of re-entry to save a pet; the most common mental-health concerns resulted from separation anxiety from a pet and refusal to accept medical treatment until a pet's well-being can be assured. These are thought to be typical issues that will arise out of the human-animal bond in urban disaster situations and differ considerably from traditional public-health concerns over dog bites, spread of zoonotic diseases, and human food contamination. Medical disaster preparedness planning should consider the substantial effects that the human-animal bond is likely to have on human recovery from large-scale urban disasters.
Heath
S E
SE
Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Purdue University, School of Veterinary Medicine, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1249, USA.
Champion
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D002415:Cats; D002648:Child; D006224:Cricetinae; D004190:Disasters; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D001841:Human-Animal Bond; D006801:Humans; D007196:Indiana; D008297:Male; D011634:Public Health; D011817:Rabbits; D018635:Rescue Work