Twenty Questions with Greatest Potential to Inform and Improve Access to Veterinary Care

Problem:
The animal welfare field aims to improve access to veterinary care (AVC) nationwide, but we still have much to learn to achieve this effectively. Through research, we can learn how to construct and deliver highly effective and accessible veterinary care programs across the nation.
Goal:
Harnessing the expertise of veterinarians, sheltering and other animal welfare experts who are heavily involved in AVC, we collectively identified the 20 questions with the greatest potential to inform and advance AVC work so that we can focus our research efforts on the topics that will have the greatest impact on AVC. This helps academics and practitioners prioritize their research, while foundations direct funds to the most important initiatives, ultimately advancing AVC efforts and improving companion animal welfare nationwide.
What We Did:
We conducted an initial survey to generate a list of questions and a committee of AVC experts reviewed and selected questions that they thought would have the greatest potential to inform and advance our crucial work in AVC, if answered.
Results:
The committee of AVC experts identified expansive questions focused on defining and increasing equitable access, engaging communities and pet owners, supporting practitioners and delivering care.
Action:
A primary goal of this work was to encourage researchers to focus their efforts on the questions that have the greatest potential to advance AVC and for organizations to fund this priority research. Individuals who may not be actively engaged in research but who implement AVC programs can also use this list of priority questions to better understand what they know and don’t know about AVC programs and what knowledge gaps to fill to better deliver services. Organizations can identify existing information or data they can easily collect and analyze to address these questions and guide future efforts. Organizations working in AVC can also partner with researchers to evaluate and improve their AVC programming while simultaneously providing the field with answers to these critical questions.
20 Highest Priority Research Questions for AVC
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Read the full research publication.
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