The Human Animal Bond Research Institute Awards Grant to The University of Surrey
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) today announced a new grant for research that will apply methods in machine learning and data analytics, supported with data from human cohort studies, to gain a better understanding of the human-animal bond and the connection to pet and human health. This grant was awarded to a team of researchers led by Principal Investigator Dr. Nophar Geifman, Professor of Health and Biomedical Informatics at the University of Surrey.
"The bond between humans and their companion animals offers significant health benefits for both sides," said Dr. Nophar Geifman, the Principal Investigator for this study. "We aim to gain a better understanding of this bond and its effect on companion animal and human health and wellbeing, by applying artificial intelligence approaches to questionnaire data as well as data from other studies on health outcomes in humans."
Researchers will utilize data from the International Survey of Pet Owners & Veterinarians, commissioned by HABRI in partnership with Zoetis, for this research. First, using a range of computational techniques, researchers will investigate which measures are most associated with the strength of the human-animal bond, such as quality of life and veterinary care. Researchers will then use methods in machine learning to identify different subgroups or "types" of pet parents, based on their characteristics, and relate those subgroups to animal health outcomes and the human-animal bond. Researchers will rely on these data-driven insights to design and propose the deployment of a new survey within the UK-Biobank, a 500,000-person study on health and wellbeing.
Information derived from this venture will be disseminated and can inform the wider population on the benefits of the human-animal bond. The availability of complementary data to the HABRI-Zoetis International Survey, including proposed access to the UK-Biobank, will allow future analyses to incorporate and control for additional human health outcome and wellness information, leading to a means of confirming correlation between human health and pet ownership.
"This project has the potential to provide valuable longitudinal data about the benefits of pet ownership and the importance of supporting the human-animal bond as a matter of public health," said Steven Feldman, President, HABRI.
About HABRI
HABRI is a not-for-profit organization that funds innovative scientific research to document the health benefits of companion animals; educates the public about human-animal bond research; and advocates for the beneficial role of companion animals in society. For more information, please visit http://www.habri.org.
Media Contact
Hayley Maynard, Human Animal Bond Research Institute, (614) 532-5279, [email protected], https://habri.org/
SOURCE Human Animal Bond Research Institute
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