While pet owners are no strangers to cleaning up after their animals, new research shows that pets may be trekking more than just dirt and mud into the house after spending time outdoors.
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and New York State Department of Health found that owners of indoor-outdoor pets, specifically cats and dogs, face a higher risk of tick exposure. The study, published June 19 in Zoonoses and Public Health, found that households with pets had a risk of finding ticks attached to household members 1.49 times higher than those without pets. Households with pets also had a 1.83 times higher risk of finding ticks crawling on household members.
According to the study’s authors, the results suggest that pet owners are at an increased risk of tick-borne diseases. Lyme disease, passed to humans through tick bites, is the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S. Signs include flu-like symptoms and rashes that, if left untreated, can develop into chronic heart, brain or joint conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The research team surveyed more than 2,700 households in Connecticut, Maryland and New York, three Lyme disease-endemic states. Participants were asked about what their homes were like, whether they owned a pet that went outdoors and use of tick control on pets. Households reported tick encounters and incidents of tick-borne disease over the course of six months.
The analysis was part of a larger study conducted by TickNET, the tick-borne disease initiative of the CDC Emerging Infections Program.
Bringing ticks into the house is not the only way pets can increase the risk of tick encounters, said James Meek, MPH, associate director of the Yale Emerging Infection Program at Yale School of Public Health.
“Pet owners may engage in activities with their pets that take both themselves and their pets into tick habitats — such as walks in the woods or brushy areas — increasing the risk of tick encounters for both the pet and human,” Meeks said in a news release.
Home features such as vegetable gardens, compost piles, bird feeders, stone walls or children’s play equipment were also found to contribute to an increased risk of tick exposure.
While pet-owning households reported more tick encounters, researchers were unable to conclude if the finding translated to a higher prevalence of tick-borne diseases among pet-owners. The study’s authors said the higher prevalence may be due to the infrequency of tick-borne diseases reported across all subjects. However, they noted that separate research has established self-reported tick encounters as a “robust surrogate” for disease risk.
In pet-owning households, the rate of tick encounters remained the same regardless of whether tick treatments were used on pets. Researchers said that may be because some treatments kill only attached ticks. Therefore, unattached ticks may still be brought indoors where they can latch onto humans.
The study’s authors urged pet owners to conduct daily tick checks on their pets and all household members and consult their veterinarian for effective tick control products.
For more information, visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zph.12369/full.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
