Summary: Hi everyone, This is Krista with Episode #141. On the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. I am so excited to share with you that I'm going to be expanding my Wag Out Loud business, with lots of exciting things to come. I wanted to let you know that as of January 2022, I'm going to go from releasing weekly episodes to releasing bi monthly episodes. Putting the Show on is so important to me. But to do it right, and all on my own, I've decided to bring you the same awesome guests and content, but just with a lesser frequency. That's going to give me more time to work on other fantastic projects and the canine health and wellness space. So stay tuned for some exciting future announcements. I am begging everybody. Please restrain your pup while traveling in your car. According to the pet advocacy group, Bark Buckle Up, a 60 pound dog in a car traveling just 35 miles an hour can turn into a 2700 pound projectile in an accident. So please play it safe and make sure your dog is secured in a crash tested crate or buckle them up via an appropriate harness either in the backseat or for smaller dogs in an appropriate booster seat. Let's ensure that your dog doesn't become one of these statistics. Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Dr. Michael Blackwell had a doctorate of veterinary science as well as a masters in public health. He directs the Program for Pet Health Equity at the University of Tennessee, chairs the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition, and serves as a member of the HSVMA Board of Directors. In the past he has served as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tennessee, the chief of staff at the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S., the deputy director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the Food and Drug Administration, and the chief veterinary officer of the U.S. Public Health Service and The Humane Society of the United States. During 23 years of active duty, he achieved the rank of Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. He has owned two private practices and has received numerous awards and recognitions. Hello dog lovers. Today we are going to learn something new as we chat with Dr. Michael Blackwell, about access to veterinary care, a national family crisis. Dr. Blackwell, thank you so much for being here. I've been looking forward to this interview. And everybody's going to be blown away about all that you do. So if you could introduce yourself, and tell us why you have such a heart for providing veterinary care for underserved families. Well, certainly thank you for the opportunity to join you with on this podcast and share information with your audience. Yes, Dr. Michael Blackwell. I'm the director of the program for pet health equity at the University of Tennessee. And our mission is to improve access to veterinary care for underserved families. It's a huge societal crisis that we have and such important work. We often hear about access to health care with respect to human members of the family, but not as much about the non human members. And so we need to catch up in this work. And I'm just so thrilled to be doing it. You must have a huge heart and I can't wait for everybody to learn about the program. So why don't we start with statistics. So according to a study from the University of Tennessee's College of Social Work, and the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition, 28% of households reported having barriers to veterinary care in the past two years. So money being the biggest factor and the study also estimated more than 29 million pets live in homes that rely on SNAP benefits, or food stamps. Can I first ask what are SNAP benefits? Yes, SNAP is an acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the food stamp program. So many of our families rely on public assistance in the form of food stamps, I do want to hasten to say we are having to overcome a bias about the people who need assistance. The bias is many might think that these are people who are irresponsible if they just worked harder or went out and got a job, they wouldn't be needing help. But the truth of the matter is the largest percentage of these folks do contribute. They do work, but they're paid such low wages that they can't support the family without some assistance. So we use that measure because if you qualified for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, then you probably are not walking into a veterinary clinic paying for veterinary care. And so that was thought to be pretty sound measure or estimate of the size of the problem. Sure. Well, and you and I both know, in this day and age, so many more dogs are not only getting cancer, but all of the other diseases associated with the lifestyle and toxins in our environment, that I mean, even people with means more and more of us are having to face the fact of an awful diagnosis or a surgery or what have you. And it could be so expensive. And it's expensive to have pet insurance as well. So I can't even imagine having a dog where I would have to make a life or death decision, all based on my financial means. Yes. You know, in, in that situation, everybody loses. Let's start with the individual who needs medical care. And then let's look 360 degrees around that pet and see the pet’s people. And we see the veterinary care team that wants to help, that lose, and then our communities lose. Because if we're not preventing and controlling zoonotic diseases, those diseases that an animal can pass on to a human, then our communities are at risk as well. It's a very, very difficult and important situation that must be addressed. And we think it can be, but we need to intend to fix that. You, a few years ago, you did a lot of research in this area. So can you share what your findings are? Yes. And let's start with the stats that you just shared. More than one out of four families reported a barrier to veterinary care in the previous two years. That is, as bad as that number is, things have gotten worse since COVID-19. You know, there are still individuals who are unemployed or not fully employed as they were before the pandemic. So the numbers have worsened, the problem has worsened. We wanted to understand those barriers. And as you pointed out, the biggest one is finances. But there are some others. And these pet owners, a very important stat is 88% of the respondents consider their pet a family member. And interestingly, the veterinarians that were surveyed, about the same percentage considered the pets family members. And the veterinarians, with 90% believe that when these pets do not get veterinary care that there are emotional impacts, negative impacts upon the pet’s family. And so we wanted to characterize the problem with an initial study. And of course, our work has continued since then, that Access to Veterinary Care Coalition wanted to understand better what these barriers are. And let me just point this out, you know, in animal welfare work, and in veterinary medicine, we are historically very pet centric or animal centric in our thinking in our activities. But when we talk about barriers to medical care, the pets don't present the barriers. The barriers are human derived human factors. I point that out because both the veterinary medicine industry or profession and animal welfare industry need to broaden our scope so that we understand we've got to like the people well enough to help them because that is the way by which we're going to help the the pets, the individuals we want to reach. Sure, that makes sense. Well, I know you've talked about the data and what it looks like for bonded families versus the health metrics with non-bonded families. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. And just as a reminder, we coined the term bonded family, or bonded family in order to be more precise about who it is we're talking about. so bonded means, families that have animals. Bond bonded families are the ones where there is truly an emotional bond between the humans and the non human members of that family. In other words, the human animal bond And so we thought that it was important to be clear that these families are very much deserving of support because of those emotional impacts. And so previous studies and our own work that's ongoing shows that humans benefit from these relationships. And the benefits are both psychological and physiological or physical. We know that, for example, people with pets are more physically active, especially with with dogs, because they take them out for a walk, they're more socially engaged, less depression, and anxiety is measured less stress. Our recent work shows that these families, these bonded families, report a higher rate of happiness, if you would, and well being. So in summary, there, there's some work that's been done. And we need to continue to do the work to better understand why we humans are healthier or better off when we're in these relationships. And this then gets back to the fact that helping the animals means understanding what's going on with, in this case, the pet’s' people. These benefits, by the way do translate into economics. So for example, the very people who struggled to pay for needed services don't need to be getting sick. There are people who struggled to access health care for the humans don't need to be getting sick. And if the pets are helping them to stay healthier, man, don't we want to make sure that that they are able to have that relationship. And so we take the position, we don't believe you should be denying a relationship with another. Period. But in this case, denying the relationship with a pet because of finances. In that the end of the day. It's more costly for the family. It is more costly for our nation. When families are unhealthy, human members are unhealthy. Well, I just want to let everybody know that Dr. Blackwell is behind this whole concept because you have both a Doctorate of Veterinary Science, you are a veterinarian, as well as a Master's in Public Health. So those two married together brings us to this program and this cause. And to your point, the lack of veterinary care impacts not only our pets and ourselves as the pet family, the veterinary care team and the community. So I love how you are trying to address all of these areas. So what we are going to do is take a quick sponsor break and then why don't we dive into this program for Pet Health Equity, and how you foresee making an impact on veterinary care, so we'll be right back. We are so grateful to the Original Mine Pet Platter for sponsoring this episode. This has to be one of my favorite products ever! The Mine Pet Platter is designed to benefit the health and well-being of your dog and promotes the ultimate natural feeding experience for both meals and treats. 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