Veterinary Employees
per 1,000 Households
Veterinary Employees per 1000 Households
The first layer in the map above shows the number of veterinary employees per 1,000 households (VEPH) in every county across the contiguous 48 States. VEPH helps to give a sense of how many people are available to provide care, not just veterinarians but technicians and support staff. By focusing on employees rather than clinics we account for the fact that clinics have different staffing levels, giving some clinics a higher capacity to provide care than others. This metric is the result of taking the aggregate number of veterinary clinic employees as defined by the NAICS code 541940 (excluding veterinary laboratory facility employees) and dividing that number by the number of households then multiplying by 1,000 at the county level.
Difference from Average
The second layer in the map above shows the difference difference between the number of veterinary employees in the county and the number that would be needed for the county to meet the National average.
For example, Pinal County, AZ has 0.74 veterinary employees per 1,000 households. In order for it to achieve the National average of 2.52 veterinary employees per 1,000 households it would require an additional 277 veterinary employees. The Difference from Average layer shows these differences for every county in the country, both for those who fall below average and for those who surpass it.
Descriptive Statistics
Mean
2.52
The mean -- or "average" -- VEPH across the country is 2.52.
Median
1.65
50% of the counties in the country have a VEPH of 1.65 or less while 50% of the counties have a VEPH greater than 1.65
The most common value of VEPH is zero. There are 694 counties with a VEPH of zero
Mode
0
The lowest value for VEPH is zero and the highest is 170, but very few counties have a VEPH greater than 8.
0 to 170
Range
More Context: Is there a "normal" VEPH?
No. We can't say that there's a "normal" value for VEPH. The descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode) help put VEPH values into context but they don't tell the whole story. The histogram below starts to paint a clearer picture of the observed values for VEPH across the country. As can be seen, zero, is the most commonly observed value. After that, the vast majority of counties show a VEPH somewhere between 0.8 and 2.8. Of the more than 3,000 counties in the country, fewer than 200 have a VEPH greater than 8.
