Veterinary Vertex
Veterinary Vertex is a weekly podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the clinical and research discoveries published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) and the American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR). Tune in to learn about cutting-edge veterinary research and gain in-depth insights you won’t find anywhere else. Come away with knowledge you can put to use in your own practice – along with a healthy dose of inspiration to remind you what you love about veterinary medicine.
Veterinary Vertex
Navigating Pet Owner Vaccine Hesitancy: Insights and Strategies for Veterinarians
Discover the intriguing world of pet owner vaccine hesitancy with Dr. Simon Haeder, who brings his expertise and personal experiences to our conversation on Veterinary Vertex. Drawing from his recent AJVR article, Simon offers a detailed exploration of how the Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) survey tool was adapted to understand the hesitancy among pet owners. With over 20% of dog and cat owners showing reluctance to vaccinate, Simon underscores the vital role veterinarians have in safeguarding public health, urging them to build trust and communicate effectively about the risks and benefits. This episode shines a light on the parallels between human and pet vaccination, calling for more research and proactive engagement in this evolving field.
Inspired by Simon's dedication and insights, our discussion reminds listeners of the importance of understanding vaccine hesitancy's broader impact on both pets and public safety. Moreover, we encourage awareness of the ongoing evolution of vaccine policies, stressing the need for informed and open dialogue between pet owners and veterinarians. Join us in this engaging episode as we explore these critical topics and their implications for veterinary practices and society at large, and don't forget to stay connected for our upcoming episodes.
AJVR open access article: https://doi.org/10.2460/ajvr.24.06.0163
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You're listening to Veterinary Vertex, a podcast of the AVMA Journals. In this episode we chat about an exploratory assessment of the parent attitudes about childhood vaccine survey tool to assess vaccine hesitancy and pet vaccination status among pet owners with our guest Simon Hader.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Veterinary Vertex. I'm Editor-in-Chief Lisa Fortier, and I'm joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright. Today, we have Simon joining us. Simon, I'm really excited to learn even more about your article and your subject matter, so thank you so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, let's dive right in. So, simon, your AJBR article discusses an exploratory assessment of the parent attitudes about childhood vaccine survey tool to assess vaccine hesitancy and pet vaccination status among pet owners. Please share with our listeners the background on this article.
Speaker 3:But basically what it is. It's a bunch of survey questions that have been used in pediatrics primarily to assess how parents feel about vaccinations, and the article basically tries to see whether we can apply that survey tool with some minor adjustments to pet owners and specifically hear about dogs and cats, and that's kind of the gist of the article and then how that connects to, obviously, the issue we care about.
Speaker 1:And that's where the pets are vaccinated.
Speaker 3:So what are some of the important take-home messages from this article?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the article covers a lot of ground. I was really excited to work on it, but I think the big takeaway is that the vast majority of pet owners are okay with vaccinations. They get their pets vaccinated. There's some slight hesitancy, I think, among many, but I think that's very similar to how parents feel about child vaccinations at this point as well. But I think at the same time there's a small group of pet owners just over 20% of dog and cat owners who are really concerned and scored as vaccine hesitant on this scale, and I think that has, you know, significant implications and I'm sure we'll talk about those later both for society from a public health perspective as implications for pet owners, but it also has, I think, some significant implications for veterinarians, and this might be an issue that veterinarians haven't really thought about before. And then one of the nice things about the survey tool that I'm using is it tells you a lot of the background, why people are concerned about vaccinations and where those concerns are coming from.
Speaker 2:Well, you teed up my next question perfectly and I think one out of five is actually quite a few that if they're hesitant and, like you said, it's a one health issue, and now that you have this foundational aspect and you have some insights into that 20%, what are the next steps for research in this topic area?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's worth noting, though, like there's a difference between vaccine hesitance and vaccine resistance or not vaccinating your pet right, if you're vaccine hesitant, you're going to be on that spectrum sometimes not to get your pet vaccinated, and so these are probably the people we should be paying attention to. But you know so, like 20%, yes, it's not a small number, and I think that's an important takeaway, but I think, from a future research perspective and beyond research really is, there's very little work that has been done on this issue. And then that was quite striking to me. I come, obviously, from a human perspective. I'm not a trained veterinarian by any means, but I've done a bunch of work on the human side of vaccine hesitancy, and for a number of reasons I got into this topic and I was really startled by the lack of research, even basic descriptive research, like no historical data on this topic, really nothing on how veterinarians feel about this issue. You know no historical data on this topic, really nothing on how veterinarians feel about this issue. Very limited, very little, even on you know the topic that I cover, you know the vaccine hesitancy among pet owners, and I think so just learning more, translating a lot of the research that we already have on the human side of things into the pet perspective. I think that's really the next step in doing a bunch of the groundwork.
Speaker 3:You know, how are veterinarians affected? What do veterinarians have to offer here? What are approaches and tools that we can use to alleviate the vaccine hesitancy? How should we train veterinarians? You know when they go to veterinary school to address these kind of issues and how to expect those kind of things. What do they need to be on the lookout for, with the growing number of pets not being vaccinated? Like what should they be paying attention? Because I assume most veterinarians probably have never seen a case of rabies and so this might be startling for them if a dog or a cat or another animal comes in with rabies and, you know, just even thinking this could be rabies right, because a lot of dogs and cats may not be vaccinated.
Speaker 2:I think you answered this next question in a broad term, but maybe you can reframe it. As you said, you came from the human side. So what sparked your interest? What really was like other than just like wow, there's nothing known. What really sparked your interest in pet vaccination? Was it an outbreak? Or how did you get to know about this lack of knowledge in pet vaccination?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 3:So I've worked on school-based health issues for a while and once you deal with that kind of topic, vaccines are inevitable, right, because it's such a core component of kids being able to attend school and not dying in a lot of ways or not getting really sick.
Speaker 3:And so I have a dog myself, we have an Australian Shepherd and we had an emergency with her ended up in you know the veterinary hospital here at texas a&m on the weekend. Of course that's usually how that goes. And so we waited a long time in the in the waiting room and, you know, you kind of look around and use some posters and vaccines and then, with you know your own background, having dealt with that kind of issue on the human side, you start thinking. And so I started looking into a little bit and kind of, as I said, was kind of issue on the human side, you start thinking, and so I started looking into it a little bit and I kind of, as I said, was kind of shocked how little we really know about it. And so I started working on this and you know, obviously my skill set is not a veterinary skill set. My skill set is learning more about, you know human behavior related to vaccines, and so that's what I've tried to work on and continue to work on for now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I've tried to work on and continue to work on for now. Yeah, that's fascinating. I figured there was an animal background story in there somewhere. I feel the same way. I have a horse and I'm a snob at the barn, like I'll vaccinate all the horses for free if there's a hesitant or somebody who's like I don't need to, because it's frightening how quickly these diseases can spread and it just shouldn't when you have good vaccines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's obviously a difference among diseases, right, I think. The one I think that everybody can associate with is rabies, because it jumps into humans obviously very easily, jumps into wildlife very easily. If you don't treat it right away, there's no cure, it's 100% fatal. And these are things that we have to deal with. While vaccine rates are higher for rabies, because a lot of states require it and all those, it's worth noting not all states require this. Not states require this for all animals, not states require it for animals that don't travel out of states.
Speaker 3:So with a growth or general growth in sentiment that's questioning public health tools and public health approaches and vaccines, these numbers are probably going to get worse. And then you know you need to really start thinking about what does that mean, especially for veterinarians, because it's kind of like the first line off the fence, right, if you're most likely to get bitten, you have to, you know, deal with all these other ancillary issues that come from it. And you also need to be proactively thinking about how can I convince you know, my clients, that this is a good and a safe thing. You know, most of the vaccines in the pet realm have been around for a long time and they're very safe, you know, besides the minor side effects, like you know burning or redness, and you know we have in humans as well. But I think thinking about those kind of things proactively on the side of veterinarians is really, really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. It's a very important heads-up reminder and thank you again for sharing it with AJVR. Sarah asked you earlier what are some of the important findings. But every time we write a manuscript, we find something that you know the aha. I didn't understand. I didn't think I'd find that. What did you find surprising from putting this article together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. I thought about it for a little bit. I think one of the most shocking findings for me was that there was such a concern. There's 15 items basically that make up the survey tool and they ask stuff like do you trust your dog's veterinarian, do you think dog vaccines are effective, and all those kinds of things. The startling number for me was that a substantial majority not just a small, but substantial majority was concerned about giving multiple vaccines at the same time.
Speaker 3:And I think you know you see a little bit of this in the human realm. You know if you follow, you know what's currently going on in Washington with the election. I think everybody has seen that picture of there's a baby and there's gazillion injection needles around the baby and all those concerns. It's amazing how that was the most concerning item for the vast majority of respondents. I think 85% were either partially or very concerned about those kind of issues. And then there's some minor things that you kind of start wondering why this is the case. You know, like less than 50% thought that dog or cat vaccines were effective, less than 50% thought that they're safe and more than 50% were concerned about side effects. And you know that was never really a concern that had occurred to me when I get my dog vaccinated, and so it was striking to me that the numbers were so large.
Speaker 1:I think in that regard, yeah, it's definitely crazy to think about. To think about, and, for those of you just joining us, we're discussing an exploratory assessment of the Parent Attitudes About Childhood Vaccine Survey Tool to assess vaccine hesitancy and pet vaccination status among pet owners with our guest, simon. So, simon, how did your training or previous work prepare you to write this article?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. So again, I mentioned it, not a veterinarian, I've done a lot of work that's similar to this. You know, for humans I've done work on, you know, covid. Obviously everybody that works in the space has done some work on COVID. But I've also done more recent work on RSV. You know there's some important treatments that came out for that recently and important vaccines that came out, and so I've worked in this space and I thought about these issues for a long time.
Speaker 3:And obviously in a school of public health there's interaction with epidemiologists and also we have a very good vet school associated to our campus.
Speaker 3:So you know that training clearly I think helps me focus on the human side of things. What I've been trying to find is some partners, you know, that have better veterinary expertise obviously than I have to expand this kind of work, because I think there's I mentioned this so much work to be done on the owner side of things, but there's also a lot of work on the veterinary side of things that obviously I'm not an expert in and it would be greatly benefit me, and I think, finding the partners to that kind of work. And so I know my limitations, I'm trying to work around those. But you know it's always hard to find, you know, people that match in them, because I don't think it's a big issue I shouldn't say big issue. It's not a very common issue I think that veterinarians have thought about so far and so finding someone that really you know has the skillset and the interest to work on this has been a challenge.
Speaker 1:Well, if anyone's listening and wants to be a collaborator definitely let Simon know that's true. So, simon, this next set of questions is going to be really important for our listeners, and the first one is going to be centered around the veterinarian. So what's one piece of information the veterinarian should know about? An exploratory assessment of the parent attitudes about childhood vaccine survey tool to assess vaccine hesitancy and pet vaccination status among pet owners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know it kind of touches about something I said earlier, I think being aware that this exists, right, I think that it exists and has implications and it's not a small number. You know if you have 20%, you know obviously there's differences where you live and you know what backgrounds, you know what patients you see and all this kind of stuff. But you're going to run into people that are concerned about vaccines and I think, from what we know in the human side of vaccines, is that a connection, a trusting connection to a veterinarian is going to be very important here to A you know, understand and listen to their concerns. But also, you know, build a relationship with your patients. Act as a trusting source, be honest about what you know and what you don't know and what science knows and what we don't know about these kind of things. I think that's very important, not brushing off concerns about vaccines, but, you know, acknowledging that people have real concerns for a number of reasons. They may be misinformed, they had a bad experience before, they know someone that had a bad experience with the vaccine.
Speaker 3:These, you know, vaccines they're very important, they're very good, they're very helpful, but they're not without risk and the risk is usually very, very small. But, you know, acknowledging that things can go wrong, I think is very, very important. And so thinking about, you know, the veterinarian's role as an important member of society, as a public health resource really for society, and making sure that pets are vaccinated and that we don't get, you know, major outbreaks of rabies or something else, I think that's very important, not only from a public health perspective, but we don't. We also know vaccines don't work 100%, right. So even if I get my pet vaccinated but the vaccine doesn't work 100% and then they get in contact with another pet that's not vaccinated, gets sick, potentially die, I incur lots of costs, the pet potentially dies. That's devastating for a lot of people, right, and that's kind of unnecessary in a lot of ways because we have the resources to kind of address these kind of issues proactively.
Speaker 1:So, on the other side of the relationship, what's one thing the public should know about vaccine hesitancy amongst pet owners?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was wondering if I should go more on the positive or on the negative side, and so I think, from a more negative side, I think it's important to think about that your neighbor's cat or dog might not be vaccinated against a bunch of things that you really are concerned about.
Speaker 3:I think, just kind of thinking about this, that the pet that you know, the cat that's running through the neighborhood, there's a good chance it's not vaccinated against rabies, right, and you know, just thinking about this, I obviously don't, you know, shouldn't be like keep your kids from pets.
Speaker 3:I think that's really important and all that kind of stuff, but just being mindful that you know these are animals and they may or may not be vaccinated, and when they come into contact with your dogs they may or may not be vaccinated, they may not may or may not be vaccinated at the dog park and all those kind of things. So I'm always skeptical a bit about dog parks because you know it's very disease prone and we had lots of bad experiences early on without a dog. But you know, like, just being aware that this is a potential, I think is important, just like it's important to know that that kid next door might also not be vaccinated against MMR, and that may have implications for your baby as well. You know those kind of things. Just general awareness, I think, is a starting point for everyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. My equivalent of the dog park is the horse show. Yeah, that's true you can. It's not that hard to fake. You could fake the what they were vaccinated with. Like no steward is going to look up the exact lot number and I just see those horses coughing and sneezing and eating and drinking out of the same bucket. You're like oh no, um, but but thank you, simon. It's a super cool topic, as you've said, very underserved in our community. So thank you for bringing this to our awareness.
Speaker 3:It's my pleasure.
Speaker 3:I'll note this too. I think you know there's some uncertainty about the future of vaccines and vaccine policy in this country, and I think it's worth mentioning that here as well. We kind of don't know where this is going, both for humans and for pets. There's certainly, you know, some movement to push back against any and all requirements regarding to vaccines both. For example, you know requirements in schools and I wouldn't be surprised if more of that you know would be coming into the pet world. You know, as you mentioned, not all states require you to vaccinate your dog, even against rabies, which seems in a lot of ways crazy. But you know we might see more of that, and the focus right now has been on the human side of things because obviously more focus has been on it. But that could very well be a pushback against requiring to get your pets vaccinated and all those kinds of things, and so it's going to be from a public health and veterinary perspective. I think it's an interesting time and we don't really know where things are going at this point.
Speaker 2:That's perfect. Then you write more and we have you back next time.
Speaker 3:That's very good it gets from my job security as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Thank you again. And as we wind down, we'd like to ask a little more of a fun question. When Simon completes a puzzle, do you start with the exterior border or do you do the inside, maybe by color, by a shape?
Speaker 3:No, I think there's only one correct answer, and that's just outside. It's the most efficient way and, like I, I don't see any other way.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's up for grabs. Sarah and I are doing a prospective study. We love this question.
Speaker 1:It's good timing too, with the holidays. I feel like a lot of people do puzzles with their families. You know when they're home for the holidays, so we do have the holiday puzzles.
Speaker 3:I have a bunch of kids, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll see Stay tuned for our future results on that. But thank you so much, Simon. Really appreciate you being here today sharing information about this important topic and also for submitting your manuscript to AJVR.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:And to our listeners. I'm Sarah Wright with Lisa Fortier. Be on the lookout for next week's episode and don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to.
