Advancing the Science and Practice of Equine-assisted Services through Community-Academic Partnerships

Ambiguity of the incorporation of animals in services that promote health and well-being is often due to inadequate sample sizes and imprecise outcome measures necessary to detect differences in research groups. Researchers are recognizing that to transcend these concerns and truly affect population health, they must partner with communities. This paper describes guiding principles of community-academic partnerships using two different types of equine-assisted services as illustrations. These principles and illustrative examples demonstrate how researchers and communities can work together to advance science and practice.