Abstract
Background and aim
A large proportion of tick bites is being contracted in gardens. However, studies investigating the use of protective practices against ticks do not focus on the use of these practices in garden environments. The main aim of this study is to compare the use of protective practices against tick bites between activities in public nature areas and private gardens, and to determine which factors influence the use of protective practices in these environments.
Methods
We investigated awareness and knowledge of ticks and tick-borne diseases as well as the use of protective practices against tick bites in gardens and public nature areas, using an online questionnaire in the summer of 2020 in Flanders, Belgium. Binomial generalized linear mixed-effects models were constructed to identify which factors influence the use of these protective practices.
Results
A total of 1471 respondents completed the online questionnaire. Performing a tick check is the most frequently used protective practice. Having searched for information on ticks was correlated with the use of all protective practices. Respondents were significantly less likely to use protective practices in their garden compared to public nature areas, but this was heterogeneous across the set of respondents. Respondents that do use protective practices in their gardens are more often over 50 years old and living in high tick-risk areas.
Conclusion
Our findings highlight a lower awareness of tick risks and reduced use of protective practices in private gardens compared to natural settings, emphasizing the need for targeted educational campaigns.
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Data availability
The questionnaire and datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- TBEV :
-
Tick-borne encephalitis virus
- TBD :
-
Tick-borne disease
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all respondents of the survey and the organizations that shared our survey with their members, including Velt vzw and Natuurpunt. We would additionally like to thank Mats Van Gestel and Eric Struyf for their contribution on the content design of the online questionnaire.
Funding
This study was funded by the Interreg North Sea Region programme, NorthTick. The funding body had no role in the design of the study, collection, analysis, interpretation of data nor in writing the manuscript.
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Käthe Robert and Erik Matthysen contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Käthe Robert. Analyses were performed by Michiel Lathouwers and Käthe Robert and interpreted by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Käthe Robert and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Participants were adults (at least 18 years old) and provided written informed consent. Participation was voluntary. No medical information was requested or collected from the participants. Identification of individual participants was impossible and there was no contact between respondents and researchers. Therefore no ethical approval was requested.
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Robert, K., Lathouwers, M. & Matthysen, E. The use of protective practices against tick bites: a survey-based comparison between nature and gardens. J Public Health (Berl.) (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-024-02281-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-024-02281-4