Where should hikers, parents, and pet lovers be on the lookout for ticks?
To mark May as National Lyme Disease Awareness Month, Pest Gnome ranked 2024’s Worst States for Tick-Borne Illnesses.
How does New York stack up in some key metrics (1st = Most Vulnerable)?
- Total Lyme Disease Cases (Most Recent Year) - 1st
- Forest Areas - 4th
- Blacklegged Tick (Ixodes Scapularis) and Western Blacklegged Tick (Ixodes Pacificus) Distribution - 8th
- Historical Average Number of Extremely Hot Days - 7th
- Farmsteads and Other Land (Acres) - 29th
- Average Monthly Google Searches for Top Tick-Related Keywords Over Past Year - 2nd
To come up with their ranking, Pest Gnome compared the 50 states based on 6 categories. They looked at annual rates of tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF). They also considered environmental factors like forest area, hiking trails, and length of tick and flea season, among 25 total metrics.