Tick research project launches for 2019

Collecting data from people who enjoy Scotland’s countryside, the TickApp project is a citizen science study aiming to estimate the risk of exposure of humans to ticks and tick bites in Scotland.

With the start of March, this year’s project has started again and researcher Rita Ribeiro is looking to once again attend orienteering events and gain data from orienteers.

The objective is to be able to compare the number of ticks collected using survey transects (dragging the vegetation) with the number of ticks reported by people after running in the same area.

Orienteers are encouraged to download the app from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=citi.com.tickappmain and follow instructions on it. New participants are welcome while if you have previously used the tick app, please login using your previous details. 

Data gathered will help the research team assess how scientific methods for collecting ticks compare with actual tick encounter rates. To achieve this objective is very important that they have as many people as possible uploading tick data, from everyone who participates on the event on that day.

2019 will be the final year of the project and the more volunteers they get,the more accurate results will be obtained in estimating people’s risk of exposure to ticks in Scotland.

Results from 2018 are now online and can be accessed at  https://epidemiology.sruc.ac.uk/projects/lyme_disease_risk/results