What farmers should know about tick-borne diseases

By Diana Yates

Tick-borne illnesses like ehrlichiosis, Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are on the rise in Illinois, and outdoor workerslikefarmersareathigher risk than those who spend more time indoors.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign doctoral candidate Sulagna Chakraborty and her colleagues at

Illinois led a new study on thesubjectthatsurveyed50

Illinois farmers to learn about their awareness of the problem and engagement in tick-prevention efforts.

Chakraborty spoke to News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about what they found.

What are the trends in tick abundance and tick-bornediseaseinIllinois?

Ticks have been present inIllinoissinceatleast1905, but in recent times there hasbeenanexponentialincrease in ticks and tickborne diseases in the state. The geographic expansion ofticksisdrivenbychanges in climate and the movementpatternsofhostssuch as birds, small mammals and white-tailed deer. Land-use changes also affect the availability of suitable habitats and strongly influence tick abundance.

In particular, the tick species that can cause the most harm – such as the blacklegged tick, American dog tick, lone star tick and the Gulf coast tick – have expanded into new areas in IllinoisandacrosstheMidwest.

How might farm animals and wildlife be affected?

Ticksareknowntoparasitize domestic animals, livestock, companion animalsandwildlife.Ticksare considered vectors because they can pick up an infection during a blood-meal from one host and transmit it to another in their next meal. Among livestock, ticks can cause bovine anaplasmosis, bovine babesiosis, theileriosis, cattle fever and other diseases. Ticks can be a nuisance and are known to cause infections incats,dogsandothercompanion animals.

If cattle and wildlife interact in nature – for example, during grazing – this can promote the transmissionofseveralzoonoticand vector-borne diseases such as anaplasmosis, tickborne encephalitis and tularemia.Iffarmanimalsare not regularly protected with safe-to-use acaricides andgroomedforticks,they are at risk of becoming infested and can pass those ticks to their human handlers.

How informed were the farmers you surveyed about the risks to themandtheiranimals?

Awareness of ticks and the diseases they transmit varied. Beef producers and mixed-commodity farmers were more knowledgeable on this topic than crop producers. All of the farmers we surveyed knew that tickscanspreaddiseasesto humans and a majority knew that ticks also spread diseases to animals.

Farmers who reported being bitten by ticks in 39 counties in Illinois had moderate knowledge about the tick species that are present in the state. Fewer respondents said they couldidentifythemedically important tick species. Theyalsowereawareofthe types of habitats where they might be exposed to ticks but did not know which animals act as reservoirs of infection or help move the ticks around. Depending on the farm type, the sources of information used by farmers for ticks and tick-borne diseases were not always accurate and reliable. We also found that farmers were not very concerned about contracting tick-borne diseases. Didthefarmersknow how to protect themselves?

Most farmers said they performed regular tick checks on themselves after spending time outdoors and sometimes take one or more preventive measures. About half of the respondents believed that following tick-prevention measures was helpful but only