Tick ​​researchers look to find out if you spend more time outdoors due to COVID-19 restrictions

At this time of the pandemic, you may be working from home, managing children and their school work, and need a break. Outside of going to the park, trails or woods for a breather. Since you might have more time, you could also explore new areas and trails and go deep into the forest.

Researchers from five universities, including the University of Rhode Island, want to find out if COVID-19-related restrictions have increased people’s time outdoors and, in turn, their risk of coming in contact with ticks and contracting ticks. diseases they transmit. One of them is the black-legged tick, or deer tick, that carries Lyme and other dangerous disease-causing germs.

To collect information, the team is asking people across the country to complete a 10-15 minute survey to see if people’s outdoor habits have changed. Researchers from Hollins University, Duke University, and Clemson University have joined the University of Georgia and URI as part of the research team.

The study, “Investigating the Impacts of COVID-19 on the Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Diseases in People and Pets,” is being led by Michael Yabsley, a member of the Georgia Faculty.

University of Rhode Island Professor of Public Health Entomology Tom Mather said this is an important national survey to understand how restrictions on staying at home can change people’s behaviors and outdoor practices, leading to puts them at increased risk of developing Lyme disease and other serious diseases associated with tick bites. The results may suggest that self-isolation restrictions should come with more education on tick prevention. An internationally renowned expert on ticks and the diseases they transmit, Mather operates the TickEncounter website and the TickSpotters service.

TickSpotters is a tick crowdsourcing survey that gives people in North America the opportunity to submit photos of ticks that they discover on themselves or their pets and receive confirmation of tick identification, risk assessment, and best practices to manage tick bite and prevent future bites. . The survey link was recently emailed to more than 9,000 recent TickSpotters users along with several other groups, including dog owners and social media.

“Apparently, my colleagues and I were seeing the same things when governments began to impose restrictions on home stays in mid-March; in particular, we saw an immediate jump in the number of people who found associated ticks,” said Mather. .

“What we were seeing in mid-March with TickSpotters, when things really started to crash, was more than a quadruple of daily submissions very abruptly. So our theory, which we are trying to test with this survey, is that people are they will probably spend more time outdoors as they have to stay home and avoid meeting in large groups. “

Mather said that even if people spent time outdoors before the COVID-19 outbreak, they may have stayed more frequently in paved walkways along streets and in parks.

“But since they had more time, they probably thought, ‘Hey, we haven’t been on that road or trail before, let’s go see it.’ So they could walk the dog for longer periods, go further in the forest, but maybe time without a complete knowledge of tick prevention best practices, or even that they needed tick prevention, “Mather said.

“While we haven’t had time to carefully analyze the ticketing data for March through April yet, it seems like a lot more photo submissions are coming in than normal with ticks partially full or full of energy, which speaks to the fact that People are not well educated about ticks where they live, or the need for repellents and daily tick checks. “

He said about 2,000 people have already completed the survey, which will end in mid-May, but so far, many of the respondents are in the southern US. USA

“We want to have as broad a geographic representation as possible,” Mather said, “so we are really looking for people in the New England region, where tick-borne disease is quite prevalent, to complete the survey. I really encourage residents from this region to participate. “

Mather, who is a long-distance runner and former competitor to the Boston Marathon, said he was recently running down a dirt road in the local area.

“A guy I saw in the woods said he had seen many more people in the woods since the outbreak,” said Mather. “All of this potentially increases your exposure. Many people are new to venturing deeper into the forest and that is why we are probably seeing a higher number of tick exposures.”