Global Prevalence of Zoonotic Pathogens in Cats by Ownership Status

174,064 individual cats from 88 countries were analyzed in a systematic review of zoonotic pathogen prevalence. The dataset includes 124 pathogen species, 97 of which are zoonotic, comparing indoor-only, outdoor-owned, and unowned cats. Amy G. Wilson authored this research, which was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling zoonotic spillover risk based on cat ownership and roaming status.
• Comparing pathogen prevalence and diversity across different cat management categories.
• Analyzing the relationship between veterinary care and infection odds in outdoor-owned cats.

Strengths

• Includes data from 174,064 individual cats, providing a substantial sample size.
• Covers 88 countries, offering a broad geographic scope.
• Analyzes 124 pathogen species, with 97 specifically identified as zoonotic.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is 42.1 KB, indicating a limited scope likely containing summary or analysis code rather than raw data.

Provenance

Source

Amy G. Wilson

Collection Method

Global systematic review and quantitative synthesis.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 18:01:53; freshness should be verified.

Geography

88 countries