The potential for tick exposure is highest in wooded areas, gardens, and along wilderness trails. For those who are immunocompromised, it's enough to encourage them to stay home in the warmer months.
But for farmers, it's an escalating threat that they cannot avoid.
What's happening?
A new study published in the Journal of Agromedicine shows that tick-borne illnesses are spreading throughout the U.S., especially in farming communities in the Northeast. As farmers cannot remove themselves from tick habitat, the study focused on identifying solutions.
The study was led by Mandy Roome, Binghamton University's associate director of the Tick-borne Disease Center, who focused on rural farm workers in southern Vermont. This region was chosen specifically for its high risk of tick activity, agricultural activity, and higher rates of Lyme disease.
Roome and her colleagues collected data from 53 people across 46 farms and said that farmers are not working with the same level of risk as they did 30 years ago.
"Ticks and tick-borne diseases were a very different risk in the early '90s than they are now. We wanted to figure out how we can help some of our most vulnerable workers," Roome said, and was featured on Earth.com.
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The study found that 12% of participants had been diagnosed with a tick-borne disease and reported an average of three tick encounters. Some workers encountered many more, up to 70.
The researchers found a stronger association between tick encounters and handling grazing livestock or performing farm routines.
Why are tick-borne diseases important?
Tick-borne diseases can be incredibly debilitating and require as little as a few weeks off work to major surgery, at most.
Contracting one of these diseases can also result in a significant loss of income for both the farmer and the farm. If a worker gets sick during a peak period, it can affect animals' health and leave crops unharvested, ruining a whole year's worth of work in a matter of weeks.
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$200 or more 💰 The U.S. has been experiencing milder winters in recent years, allowing ticks to remain active longer than before. Tick hosts, such as deer and rodents, are also being forced to migrate as they are pushed out of their habitats by overdevelopment, pushing ticks into more suburban areas and into other already dense farmland, upping the risk for both everyday people and farmers.
What's being done about tick-borne diseases?
Roome's team is focused on trialing tick-control tubes designed to kill ticks on mice before they can infect humans. They also advise anyone who may be around ticks to cover all visible skin, wear lighter colors, and spray their clothes with a synthetic insecticide. Whenever possible, stay on marked paths to avoid high brush, and always check your pets when you return home from an excursion.
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