Prevalence of Risk and Protective Factors for Tick Exposure and Tick-Borne Disease Among Residents of Indiana.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of risk and protective factors for tick exposure and tick-borne disease (TBD) based on gender and living in urban or rural areas (urbanicity) among a cross section of Indiana adults.

METHODS

Data were collected from 3003 adults (81% response rate) spread across all 92 Indiana counties. Study participants were recruited from existing online panels maintained by Qualtrics. We calculated prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 8 primary outcomes for 2 different exposures: (1) gender (male/female) and (2) urbanicity.

RESULTS

Female participants were 10% less likely to find a tick on themselves than male participants (PR = 0.90; 95% CI, 0.74-0.99) and significantly more likely to worry about their health and safety because of ticks, whereas males avoided the outdoors less because of worry about ticks. Female participants were significantly more likely to adopt various personal protective measures, specifically because of concern for ticks. Female participants were also less likely to have been told by a health care provider that they have a TBD (PR = 0.53; 95% CI, 0.38-0.75). Rural participants were significantly more likely to report seeing a tick at their residential property (PR = 2.40; 95% CI, 2.11-2.76), report finding ticks on themselves (PR = 1.90; 95% CI, 1.68-2.23), and report finding a tick on a child at their residential property within the past 6 months than urban dwellers (PR = 1.37; 95% CI, 1.06-1.77). In addition, we found that 62% of participants have very high trust in government sources of information on TBD and tick prevention.

CONCLUSIONS

In Indiana, the area around people's residences may constitute an important source of tick exposure for humans. Being exposed to ticks is most prevalent in those living in rural areas of Indiana. Finally, risk factors for TBD are higher among males than among females.