Redefining High-Quality Care

by | Jan 1, 2026 | Animal Health Industry - Views, Views

High-Quality Care

(Editor’s Note: This article is excerpted from: Lloyd, J.W. and L.M. Greenhill. The Veterinary specialist faculty shortage: it is not all about the numbers. Vet Ophthalmol. https://doi.org/10.1111/vop.70034, 2025.)

Pet owner demographics are changing. In the US, millennials are the generation that now accounts for the biggest share of pet owners (33%). Together with Gen Z, these two segments currently comprise nearly 50% of pet owners and clearly will represent the majority of pet owners well into the future. With this shift has come a marked increase in pet owner diversity. For example, approximately 45% of millennials and 49% of Gen Z identify as non-White (vs. 28% of Boomers).1 Nearly 10% of millennials and over 20% of Gen Z self-identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community (vs. 2.3% of Boomers).2

Beyond age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity, several additional important dimensions of diversity should be considered in the context of pet healthcare delivery:

  • Income and wealth inequality in the US have been on the rise for decades, were substantially worsened by both the great recession and the COVID-19 pandemic and are now substantially higher than in almost any other developed nation.3 As a consequence, there is a growing disparity in pet-owners’ ability to afford pet healthcare across this ever-widening range of household financial capacity.
  • The CDC estimates that more than 1-in-4 adults in the US have some type of disability.4 Most common among these are disabilities related to cognition, mobility, independent living, hearing, vision, and self-care. Interestingly, employment rates for people with disabilities have increased to their highest point on record, now standing at 38%.5 Certainly, the existence of pet-owner disability can strongly impact the success of pet healthcare systems.
  • Based on recent trends, the proportion of the US population that identifies as Christian has been steadily declining while the “religiously unaffiliated” and “other religion” segments are on the rise.6 Religion can have a major impact on the Veterinary practice culture/environment, and healthcare decisions – in particular those related to end-of-life – can have a deeply-rooted religious foundation.

Such demographic changes have long impacted access to and delivery of human health care. Race, socioeconomic status, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation, among other demographic markers, all contribute to one’s ability to access and receive high-quality human healthcare.7 The resulting and well-documented human health disparities across these populations also shape their general trust in healthcare systems and the choices they make within those systems.8 Similarly, continued broad-based increases in diversity will likely have a substantive impact on preferences and expectations for pet healthcare.

To truly be considered high-quality, then, Veterinary services must be culturally appropriate to effectively meet the needs of these rapidly evolving communities of pet owners. To fully understand these new perspectives on quality and achieve consistent success in this new landscape, it is vital that the Veterinary workforce appropriately reflect the increasingly diverse pet-owning communities. In this context, representation will be crucial to maintain relevance – to aptly perceive the needs and opportunities for innovative Veterinary service, including culturally competent/culturally humble delivery models. Success will hinge on effective intercultural communication, which is more likely in the presence of appropriate representation.

Effectively meeting these challenges will require the ability to solve new and perhaps seemingly unwieldy problems. But the robust problem-solving advantages that accompany diversity of perspective and diversity of thought are both well-known and well documented. In the context of culturally appropriate Veterinary healthcare delivery, the expected benefits of assembling a diverse and inclusive healthcare team would entail both improved health outcomes and, importantly, expansion of the client base stemming from improved client satisfaction.

In short, to sustain successful delivery of high-quality care to an increasingly diverse community of pet owners will require a similar increase in diversity of the Veterinary workforce.

REFERENCES:

  1. Korhonen V. Distribution of the United States population in 2022, by generation and race. Statista, 2024. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/206969/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-us-by-generation/ (accessed 03.17.25).
  2. Jones JM. LGBTQ+ identification in US not at 7.6%. Gallup, 2024. Available at: https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgbtq-identification.aspx (accessed 03.17.25).
  3. Siripurapu A. The US inequality debate. Council on Foreign Relations, 2022. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-inequality-debate (accessed 03.17.25).
  4. Disability impacts all of us infographic. Centers for Disease Control, 2024. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents/disability-impacts-all-of-us-infographic.html?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html (accessed 03.17.25).
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  6. Projecting US religious groups’ population shares by 2070. Pew Research Center, 2022. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/projecting-u-s-religious-groups-population-shares-by-2070/ (accessed 03.17.25).
  7. Ndugga N, Pillai D, Artiga S. Disparities in health and healthcare: 5 key questions and answers. KFF, 2024. Available at: https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/disparities-in-health-and-health-care-5-key-question-and-answers/#:~:text=Disparities%20in%20health%20occur%20across,for%20AIAN%20people%20(67.9) (accessed 03.17.25).
  8. Arriola LR, Grossman AN. Ethnic marginalization and (non)compliance in public health emergencies, 2021. The Journal of Politics 83:3, 807-820.