Overall there was little benefit of the study. The information gained in the study does little to help the public. Some of the studies mentioned in the beginning of the article offered some benefit. Studies about animals and increasing physical activity or healing time can be beneficial to individuals. On the other hand a study of how many …show more content…
The study was designed to test how many children had pets in their household and it did just that. The selected method of obtaining data was through a survey. Based off of the information from the article the study met that two initial considerations “(1) what are the research objectives and research questions and (2) is a survey the most appropriate approach for meeting the research objective and answering the research questions”(). In this case a survey is the best way to obtain the needed data. The study design was created to follow children through the age of 10 to determine if they welcomed a pet into their household after the initial testing. This allowed for a more thorough analysis of the pet ownership among children. “Pet questions were asked during gestation, and at approximate child age 8 months, 21, 33, 47, 85, 97 and 122 months (up to 10 years old). For simplicity, these will be referred to as gestation, 8 months, 2 years, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 10 years”(). In order to determine the pet ownership in the house the mother was asked about any pets in the house. This was well thought out because according to the article only 2% of the population live in a single father household. So mothers of children makes up most of the …show more content…
While the study does a good job of including individuals from many different backgrounds, but it could have followed the children until and older age. The study stopped once the child turned 10 but these is a chance that a child got a pet after that time. Some families wait to allow pets into the house until the children are old enough to aid in the care of the child. The data of the amount of children that own pets could be skewed by ending the study too soon. The study is also a very long study for information that is overall unhelpful. Since the study stated that the surveys were done through surveys they could have surveyed mothers of children ages 0 to 10 all at once. Questions could include have you owned a pet since you have had a child. This would substantially lower the length and cost of the