Welcome to the Veterinary Care Accessibility Project!
We're excited to announce the launch of The Veterinary Care Accessibility Project. The project is dedicated to creating data-driven tools to help shed light on and solve the challenge of providing equitable access to veterinary care.
Our first tool: The Veterinary Care Accessibility Score
The first data-driven tool we've created is called the Vet Care Accessibility Score (VCAS): Essentially a single number to help answer the question, "How accessible is veterinary care in my county?" The VCAS uses large data sets from a variety of sources -- including the US Census, CDC, ESRI, the AVMA, and others -- to help give a "lay of the land" with regard to access to veterinary care. Some of the results are in keeping with long-held beliefs and expectations; some are not.
What's Next?
The purpose of this project is to bring about positive change through data. In the coming months, we'll be enriching the VCAS using more data; developing metrics to analyze veterinary care costs across the country; looking more closely at logistics and travel time; and publishing some of our findings in peer-reviewed publications. Please follow us on social media so we can share it all with you!