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Scientists make remarkable new discovery after studying trends in pet insurance claims — here's what it could mean for public health

"This data can help inform researchers and public health workers."

"This data can help inform researchers and public health workers."

Photo Credit: iStock

Of all things, a new study on dog health insurance claims may hold the key to predicting disease trends in American humans going forward. 

Published in the Scientific Reports journal, this study examined 15 years of recent data on both pet insurance claims and publicly available statistics on human cases for Lyme disease, Giardia, and Valley Fever, finding a direct correlation between the two.

Researchers indicated what a promising signal this can be for identifying future public health dangers.

"We furthermore demonstrated that adding dog data as a predictor variable in addition to the human data improves prediction models for those same diseases when investigating incidence over time," the study's abstract read. 

"With machine learning prediction tools for the pet insurance to predict changes in disease incidence sooner and give public health officials more time to prepare, pet insurance data could be a helpful tool to predict and detect diseases by estimating even earlier the effects of these common exposure diseases on human health … these data can help inform researchers and public health workers."

New research like this study is much needed right now, as we stand at a precarious moment in American public health. 

Many health officials and professionals have warned that COVID-19 may not be the last pandemic we see in our lifetimes. In addition, climate-related air-quality issues, further information about the dangers of microplastics, and other concerns have American citizens on edge about our future health. 

As the study noted, "Identifying emerging and re-emerging diseases at their earliest stages enables earlier public health interventions and therefore impacts more lives."

A notable issue with the COVID-19 pandemic was how unprepared the world was for such a disease, and Health Policy Watch reported the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat believes that is still an issue in 2025.

Therefore, the more advancements made in areas such as treatment, vaccines, and diagnostics, the greater chance health officials have of dealing with similar situations in the future. This study is hopefully one of many that could have be impactful in those efforts.

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While these public health worries will not be fully eradicated even with the most cutting-edge research, developing predictive tools and methods like the one revealed through this study is only going to help scientists and doctors do their jobs better and soothe civilian anxieties. 

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