Yes, and New England has among the highest Lyme disease rates in the United States. The disease was first identified in Connecticut in 1975, and the region has remained the epicenter ever since.
If you've heard people talk about Lyme disease like it's an inevitable part of living here, that concern is not exaggerated. The numbers back it up, and Springfield is right in the middle of the highest-risk region in the country.
In 2023 alone, the CDC reported over 89,000 cases of Lyme disease in the US. The Northeast (including all six New England states, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) accounted for about 70% of those cases.
There are a bunch of factors that line up to make this possible. Blacklegged ticks are the only species that transmit Lyme disease in the Eastern US, and they thrive in the wooded, suburban landscapes of the Northeast. White-footed mice act as the reservoir for the Borrelia bacteria that cause the infection. And the climate is warm enough to give ticks a chance to complete their life cycle.
About half of adult blacklegged ticks in the Northeast carry Lyme disease bacteria. Among nymphs, the rate is about 20%. But these small juvenile ticks are the cause of most human infections because they are so hard to spot, being only about the size of poppy seeds.
This is bad enough that Massachusetts has declared Lyme disease an epidemic. And the risk isn't limited to hikers or people who spend time in deep woods. Residential yards, especially those near wooded edges, stone walls, or areas with leaf litter, are where many people pick up ticks. Your backyard can be as risky as a state park.
Reducing tick populations on your own property is one of the most practical things you can do. Beyond that, daily tick checks are a great way to reduce your odds of infection, as a tick needs to be attached for more than 24 hours to spread the disease.
To help control the tick population on your property,Mosquito Squad of Springfield provides barrier treatments that help reduce tick and mosquito populations by up to 85-90% throughout the active season. As part of this process, a trained tech will identify high-risk areas on your property and apply targeted treatments every 21 days. This helps keep protection steady through the early spring all the way to late fall.
