Pet Therapy: How Animals And People Heal Each Other

The National Institutes of Health, recently created a federal research program to study human-animal interaction. The program, operated through the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, offers scientists research grants to study the impact of animals on child development; in physical and psychological therapeutic treatments, and on the effects of animals on public health, including their ability to reduce or prevent disease.

Johnson says it's critical to establish the scientific foundation for the premise that animals are good for people, even if that seems obvious.

"The last thing we want is for an entire field to be based on warm fuzzy feelings and not on scientific data," she says. "So it's very important that now the NIH is focused on this ... and it is helping scientists across the country like myself to be able to do our research."