The secret to happiness? A soft feline curled up around the house. The revelation comes from a study recently published in Plos One by an international research team, which cross-referenced data from 93 countries to evaluate the relationships between wealth, health and density of domestic felines, with national well-being indices. The results highlight that the widespread presence of cats goes hand in hand with a higher average score of personal happiness, without – among other things – increasing the incidence of feline parasites, such as toxoplasmosis.
The study
National happiness indices are tools routinely used to evaluate and compare the well-being of populations. It is known, and probably obvious, that indicators such as average salaries and medical expenses incurred by families have a direct relationship with perceived levels of happiness. Less obvious is the correlation between pets and individual well-being: owners of animals, especially cats, are ready to swear that their four-legged friend works better than an antidepressant, but an animal in the house always entails risks and annoyances, such as the possibility of contracting diseases transmitted by furry roommates.
Toxoplasma gondii is the microorganism that causes toxoplasmosis, an infection with no obvious consequences for the majority of healthy people, which however can be risky for vulnerable individuals or during pregnancy, and has been linked by various research to anxiety, depression and neuropsychiatric disorders. Starting from this evidence, the authors of the study decided to verify whether or not owning a domestic cat is associated with a greater probability of being happy, and whether this potential link is influenced in any way by the risk of contracting toxoplasmosis.
The results
By compiling aggregate data on a national scale from 93 nations, the authors confirmed the association between happiness, wealth and health, also noting two parallel trends: on the one hand, nations with a greater density of felines tend to report higher levels of happiness; on the other hand, populations with a higher rate of exposure to the parasite show lower levels of well-being. How to reconcile these two apparently contradictory results? It’s easy to say: a greater spread of domestic felines is not correlated with a higher incidence of infections.
On the contrary: the data confirms that the countries where cats are more widespread are also those where toxoplasmosis is less prevalent in the human population. The transmission of the parasite evidently responds to more complex dynamics than simple coexistence with felines, which, moreover, are not the only possible vectors of this microorganism.
Health infrastructure and socioeconomic conditions
The study demonstrates that the average wealth of a nation has a decisive influence on both the population’s ability to access a comfortable standard of living and the ways in which companion animals are managed. In countries with a higher Gross Domestic Product, people evidently tend to buy cats more frequently and ensure that they have regular veterinary care, a controlled diet and a predominantly domestic life, a factor which drastically reduces the chances of the feline encountering toxoplasma and therefore transmitting it to humans.
The data presented by the study offer an overview at the population level, but do not allow us to establish a direct cause and effect link between the presence of a single animal in the home and the increase in individual well-being. However, the association detected provides useful indications for studies on public health, an area in which levels of stress and collective dissatisfaction translate into a concrete impact on the productivity and stability of health systems. In this sense, the presence of a cat confirms itself as an element capable of positively contributing to the quality of life of many people, strengthening the evidence already known on the role of companion animals in combating cognitive decline.