Tick-borne diseases (TBD) account for increasing numbers of human disease cases, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that Lyme disease alone accounts for nearly 500,000 cases of human illness every year in the United States, with the vast majority of cases occurring in the Northeast and Upper Midwest (Schwartz et al. 2017, Kugeler et al. 2021). During the period 2008–2021, New Jersey ranked among the top 3 states in reported Lyme disease cases (cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/surveillance-data.html).

Substantial human exposure to infected ticks is thought to occur on residential properties but can also occur in neighborhood green spaces and on public lands (Stafford et al. 2017, Mead et al. 2018, Jordan and Egizi 2019). There has historically been a consensus that tick control on residential properties is the responsibility of the property owner and is performed either by homeowners or pest control firms/landscaping firms hired by them (Eisen 2020, 2021, Jordan and Schulze 2020, Eisen and Stafford 2021). While there appears to be general agreement that to be more effective, tick control must be conducted on larger, community-wide scales; it remains unclear who will assume the responsibility for implementing such a program and how they will be funded (Keesing and Ostfeld 2018, Rochlin et al. 2019, Eisen 2020, 2021, Schulze et al. 2023). There has been increasing interest in expanding publicly funded and professionally staffed local tick management programs (similar to existing mosquito management programs) as a local resource to provide sound and objective advice regarding tick control on both public and private properties (Piesman and Eisen 2008, Eisen 2020, 2021).

New Jersey has well-established populations of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say, and the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum (L.), while the invasive Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann (all Acari: Ixodidae) was recently discovered in the state. New Jersey is among high TBD incidence states that has a well-developed infrastructure for local mosquito control, with programs established in all 21 counties under the umbrella of the New Jersey Office of Mosquito Control Coordination and supported by the New Jersey Agricultural Extension Service, the Center for Vector Ecology at Rutgers University (www.njmca.org), and two professional organizations (the New Jersey Mosquito Control Association, NJMCA, and Associated Executives of Mosquito Control Work in NJ, Inc.), as well as a long history of science-based mosquito control research and practice (Patterson 2009, Egizi et al. 2019). In addition, the 1912 law that created county mosquito abatement districts was amended in 1997 to allow county mosquito commissions or other agencies as designated by county governments to provide tick surveillance, education, training, and recommendations for integrated management of ticks and tick-borne diseases (T/TBD) (N.J.S.A. 26:2P-7 (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/2022/title-26/section-26-2p-7/).

In contrast, public health is delivered in New Jersey’s 565 municipalities through a network of 102 local departments, supported by the New Jersey Department of Health, some serving a single municipality and others serving multiple communities or entire counties (https://www.nj.gov/health/lh/community/). While, unlike county mosquito control agencies, they have no direct vector control mandate, local health departments are indirectly involved in mosquito control in that creating a mosquito breeding situation is a violation of the New Jersey public health nuisance code, and abatement of such is enforceable by the local health department. However, the role of local health departments in TBDs is limited to human case surveillance and public education. Elsewhere in the United States, because vector control is commonly considered a component of environmental public health, some 50% of local health departments surveyed provide some form of vector control service to their communities (Gerding et al. 2016).

These considerations make New Jersey an ideal place to explore the feasibility of publicly funded tick management programs and community-based tick control. As a first step, we describe the results of surveys of existing mosquito control and public health agencies in New Jersey, where neither of the two groups currently has a mandate to control vector ticks, to determine their willingness and ability to assume the responsibility of creating and maintaining publicly funded T/TBD management programs as part of their current responsibilities.

While reporting that they did not have a formal T/TBD program as such, many of the responding MCAs and HDs had some level of involvement in T/TBD activity, with limited budgets of <$100,000 and with staff spending < 5% of their time on tick-related issues. As expected, MCAs reported a wider range of activities, including public outreach, tick identification, and some form of environmental tick surveillance, while HDs reported that their activity was largely restricted to public education/outreach. None of the responding HDs performed active tick surveillance, and few were familiar with novel tick control technologies. Both groups reported that their responses to T/TBD were seasonal and done on an as-needed basis. MCA responses suggested an awareness of the highest activity period for nymphal I. scapularis in New Jersey (April–June) but may also reflect that mosquito-related activity in the summer months (July–September) may have had an effect. In contrast, HD responses suggest most T/TBD activity was equally distributed across the spring and summer, which may have reflected higher public activity out of doors during those periods and, consequently, higher numbers of human-tick encounters reported to them.

Although these agencies may be involved in vector control elsewhere in the United States, local HDs in New Jersey have never been statutorily obligated to perform vector surveillance and control. MCAs were generally more familiar with tick control methods compared to HDs, however, few regularly performed tick control.

New Jersey MCAs have no legislative mandate to conduct T/TBD activities, and few of the respondents to our surveys engage in any routine surveillance, despite the presence in New Jersey of several newly emergent vectors, such as H. longicornis and the Gulf Coast tick (Amblyomma maculatum Koch), and expanding range and abundance of established, but previously under-studied, vectors (A. americanum). Most of the tick-related activities in New Jersey that are currently being performed are funded by county governments, but some MCA respondents reported receiving federal or state grants and partnering with other agencies and/or academic partners on specific projects (Egizi et al. 2019). Similarly, previous surveys have shown that many vector control agencies, whether they have a specific mandate to conduct T/TBD activities or not, engage in some form of ad hoc environmental or passive tick surveillance, but few perform routine surveillance (Mader et al. 2021, Dye-Braumuller et al. 2022). There has been considerable emphasis placed on the importance of routine, consistent tick surveillance as part of an expanded public health response to T/TBDs, including identification of emerging vectors and pathogens and the distribution of known pathogens to supplement clinical efforts (CDC 2023).

With the exception of testing ticks for pathogens, most MCAs and HDs believed that T/TBD management programs should be the responsibility of sub-state (local/county) levels of government. It has been suggested that, given that the actual risk of TBD varies at relatively small spatial scales, local-level agencies have the advantage as they are better placed to implement effective preventive intervention (Jacob et al. 2019). Mader et al. (2021) suggest that locally based testing for pathogen prevalence in vector ticks is necessary to assess TBD risk, but few agencies in that survey or ours do any tick testing, despite how important it is considered to be, because of the technical nature and the cost. Such testing is expensive and requires specialized equipment and staff, so it is rarely done even by agencies that otherwise perform a wide range of other T/TBD management activities (Dye-Braumuller et al. 2022). While it has been suggested that the lack of consistent testing creates significant gaps in our understanding of the distribution of and risk of exposure to tick-borne pathogens (Mader et al. 2021), it is unclear at what scale such testing is necessary to address objectives that may vary from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The current national surveillance system for active surveillance of ticks and detection of pathogens in ticks is focused on the county level (Eisen and Paddock 2021, Fleshman et al. 2022).

While the public tends to rely on public services to reduce vector-borne disease risk, suppression of tick populations continues to be the responsibility of individual homeowners, unlike publicly funded mosquito control (Piesman and Eisen 2008, Piesman and Beard 2012). However, 7 out of 9 newly reported vector-borne diseases in the United States since 2004 were tick-borne, and the CDC has supported routine active tick surveillance programs by state health agencies (Eisen and Paddock 2021, CDC 2023). Yet, very few programs across the country are directly involved in tick control (Stafford 2007, Eisen and Dolan 2016, Roy 2021), and activities undertaken by these programs favor approaches suited to public lands and open spaces rather than individual residential properties (Mader et al. 2021, Dye-Braumiller 2022).

A major source of trepidation among MCAs and HDs about expanding their role in T/TBD stems from their concerns regarding technical and administrative aspects of tick control. While few respondents are currently doing tick control on public lands, the majority think it should be part of the ideal T/TBD program. On the other hand, few currently conduct tick control on private lands, and just as few are interested in such efforts as part of a broader response to T/TBD. Further, MCAs and HDs report that they do not currently conduct any control because of cost and lack of expertise. Also, the majority do not provide technical support to the public about control because of lack of expertise and/or concerns about the efficacy of current control methods, despite the fact that the majority of respondents appear to be very or somewhat familiar with most of the available control methods. Most feel that providing that kind of support should be part of a T/TBD program, and the majority feels that control on public lands and even private lands is the responsibility of local/county agencies such as theirs. And, when they were asked specifically if tick control would be included in an expanded T/TBD program most report that they would include either only public lands or both public and private lands, but that the primary impediment to doing control was cost. This apparent ambivalence of responding MCAs and HDs in our surveys about expanding their response to T/TBDs appears to reflect concerns about actually performing tick control (particularly on private lands) and providing technical guidance to the public about tick control, which may reflect equal levels of knowledge/familiarity with currently available tick control measures, levels of tick control expertise within their agencies, perceptions of the efficacy of control methods, and perceived cost of doing tick control.

Significant barriers to creating and maintaining a T/TBD management program cited by both groups included the absence of sustainable funding, lack of a statutory mandate to engage in T/TBD activities, insufficient facilities and/or trained staff, lack of best management practices for tick control, lack of standardized tick surveillance across agencies, and legal constraints regarding tick control on private land. While the survey instruments did not ask respondents to provide specifics regarding legal constraints, and none volunteered any, we believe it is reasonable to infer that they likely include a lack of legal authority, as well as the potential for legal liability for actions on private property. Respondents to both surveys estimated budgets for starting and maintaining a comprehensive T/TBD management program that varied considerably (<$100,000 to >$500,000). Because we did not specify what such a program should include, this wide range of estimates likely reflects the size of the agency responding (< 5 to > 20 full-time employees) and complexity of the program being envisioned by different respondents: Dye-Braumuller et al. (2022) found that larger tick/tick-borne diseases agencies serving larger communities and those affiliated with delivery of public health services were more likely to perform a larger array of generally perceived core and supplemental vector control competencies.

While both MCAs and HDs responding to our surveys indicated support for more involvement in T/TBD activities, our result and those of previously published surveys (Mader et al. 2021, Roy 2021, Dye-Baumiller et al. 2022) show that the lack of adequate and consistently sustained funding is the most often cited barrier to the development of enhancement of T/TBD activities, including tick surveillance and control, by established public health and vector control agencies. Egizi et al. (2019) suggested that expanding the role of existing mosquito management programs to include T/TBD activities should provide an economy of scale as opposed to supporting separate tick management programs within some other entity, but regardless of the responsible party, adequate additional funding will be required for a local tick management program to succeed (Eisen 2020).

Mader et al. (2021) pointed out that agencies that are historically focused on mosquito surveillance and control (MCAs) or public health more generally have only limited ability to expand the scope of their responsibilities. Our results show that seasonal conflicts with other agency priorities pose either a major or minor barrier to expanding their response to T/TBDs by MCAs (94%) or HDs (91%). In New Jersey, because of the home rule culture of counties and municipalities, there is a heavy reliance on local property taxes as the primary source of funding for vector control and public health, which results in the consequent reliance on a system of local public health delivery that is determined by local community needs and the priorities of local governments (Herb et al. 2021). While such a system may be responsive to local needs (and perceptions of need), it often hampers responses to both regional and state-wide issues, such as an outbreak of a mosquito-borne virus or the COVID pandemic or an unanticipated economic down-turn (Willard et al. 2012, Connelly et al. 2020, Dye-Braumuller et al. 2022). Unanticipated events result in a lack of capacity to respond when the needed additional funding does not flow from the state level to sustain increased capacity (Herb et al. 2021). Vector management programs, absent a clear and present threat, are often viewed as revenue negative in times of budgetary austerity and subject to cuts in favor of other budget priorities. As a recent example, the ability of mosquito control agencies to respond to the emergence of Zika virus was significantly impacted by the precipitous loss of funding since the decline of West Nile virus case rates in the Northeast (Herring 2010, Hadler et al. 2015, Ye et al. 2015) and despite increased federal funding of local HDs in New Jersey, without adequate infrastructure and staffing due to previous budget cuts and shifting local priorities, they had difficulty in responding to the COVID pandemic (Herb et al. 2021). As pointed out by Mader et al. (2021), a lack of consistent, reliable funding greatly reduces the ability of vector control agencies to monitor changes in the risk of exposure to ticks and tick-borne pathogens over time (e.g., long-term or seasonal phenology studies, or monitoring changes in tick abundance (active surveillance) or pathogen prevalence (tick testing) in areas of recent emergence.

Given adequate funding, the majority of MCAs and HDs reported being either very or moderately willing to create new or expand existing T/TBD programs. Both types of agencies envisioned comprehensive T/TBD management programs, and although public outreach topped both lists, the order of priorities was different between MCAs and HDs.

MCAs and HDs had different opinions regarding the level of government responsibility for tick-related activity, with MCAs willing to assume the responsibility for all program components except pathogen testing in ticks. With the exception of sustainable funding and legal concerns, MCAs and HDs had different views regarding barriers to creating and maintaining T/TBD programs, with the latter citing lack of facilities/equipment, lack of best management practices, and absence of standard surveillance protocols as key impediments. Further, most HDs rated their ability to assume T/TBD program responsibilities as low, while MCAs rated their capabilities as either high or moderate, probably reflecting the traditional/historical priorities of the two groups in New Jersey.

It appears that MCA perceptions about constraints to creating/expanding a T/TBD program reflect their impressions about tick control, particularly on private lands. While local public health and vector control infrastructures must be expanded so that T/TBD activities are funded at levels at least comparable to other public health priorities (Mader et al. 2021), it is clear that funding alone is not sufficient. Additional funding, if it were made available, could obviate the lack of infrastructure and trained personnel, but it would not address unreasonable public expectations concerning the efficacy of tick control measures, the lack of accepted best tick management practices, or respondent concerns about the cost of control methods. Egizi et al. (2019) found that while even some minimal training increased the confidence of New Jersey MCA staff in doing tick surveillance, 59% of MCA personnel reported that lack of a quantifiable or actionable outcomes prevented them from actually getting involved with surveillance and “tick surveillance and control does not have the same structured set of best practices and core activities as mosquito surveillance and control,” which may prevent agencies from a broader response to T/TBD in previously published survey results (Roy 2021).

New Jersey may be unique in the delivery of mosquito management and public health, and these results may not be transferrable to other states or regions. However, in a state with a fairly comprehensive system of existing agencies staffed by highly competent mosquito control professionals that are willing to enact a more formal response to T/TBD issues, more than just additional funding is needed to create a network of practice necessary to address the growing incidence of TBD. There has been considerable interest in characterizing the spread of recognized vectors and pathogens into new areas and the emergence of new vectors and pathogens, as well as in describing our increasingly fine-scale understanding of the ecophysiology of tick vectors. In states like New Jersey with long-established vector populations and long-term high case rates, there has been a woeful neglect toward the development of guidance for practical, evidence-based, and cost-effective large-scale tick population management practice, as well as the operational use of routine environmental surveillance data. Such guidance is critical given the very high costs and long-term commitment necessary for any sustained reduction in host-seeking ticks and the lack of correspondence between current tick surveillance and control practice and human case rates.